Ed Said - A unique New Year

 

It can’t be ‘another New Year’. It’s simply a New Year, just as you cannot have ‘deja vu again’ because it is already a repeat. So it’s Happy New Year. 

Collectively we decide, with some freshness and optimism, what will be, what we will start anew, what we will try in stepping out of our comfort zone – no more artificial sweeteners, learn a new language and a plethora of New Year resolutions. 

It’s probably not important that we may slip back into our old ways in a month or three. It’s the optimism, with the past gone, that the immediate future will be ‘better’, which will mean many different things to different people. 

Many begin with New Year resolutions believing (hoping) everyone will suddenly see us as more attractive, more likeable, and more intelligent. Most of all, we believe that we’ll be happier. Of course, the truth is that nothing’s that easy. If we want our whole world to change a resolution could do that, but it definitely will not happen immediately and it definitely won’t just happen with one resolution.This is a result of an officially identified ‘false hope syndrome’. 

For some, 2018 was a wild ride, for others it was memorable and still others it was disastrous, so even the psychology behind hearing the countdown committing the old year to purgatory or toasting ‘Happy New Year’ imbues a feeling that, however 2018 was, 2019 will be better. We initially don’t think of those who will suffer medical misadventure, accidents or passings. We prefer to live in the midnight moment of good cheer and the possibility, partially borne by a break from regular work – that our renewed vigour will carry us forward.

We must, at some point, stroll down memory lane with some regrets or reliving some successes. Unfortunately as I cruise through Facebook after a fortnight’s break I’m sorry to see some old chestnuts rearing their ugly heads by people who still fail to realise that, while Mangawhai is one of the jewels in the Kaipara crown, it is not the centre of the universe. It’s sometimes a shame that turning people into a pillar of salt is no longer an option for those who persist in living in the past, something we can’t change but from which we can only learn. 

Now the working year has begun for most it is to be hoped a feeling of wellbeing will help us through at least part of it before we lapse into the doldrums of a passing summer and impending winter. 

Nothing has really changed except the date. And so we give ourselves permission to start anew, to try again, to push on ahead. To leave the tragedies and sadness of last year behind us with the realisation that nothing past can be changed, not forgetting some of the pain yet savouring the memories and remembering the good times and events that will last the lifetime of this and the next generation though they don’t even realise it yet. 

And so here we go, happy New Year, mud in your eye, l’chaim, mazel tov, and here’s to life and good fortune for 2019, for there will never be another like this one.

Rob