Well the little planet that could just completed its orbit around the sun another time. I know people just want an excuse to party, but yesterday was amateur night, and some of them were annoying to those of us with new families. The hardcore partiers just need the day to end in y in order to party. I am only familiar with this due to an early mid-life crisis in my 30s.
Part of me is cynical about New Year's, but another part of me likes the fact that some people use this time as an opportunity for self-inventory and self-improvement. The cynical part of my brain would tell you that my New Year's resolution is to save all my used aluminum foil this year to make one big ball. The better angel of my nature, in contrast, likes any and all reasons to make a fresh start. As my Dad was fond of saying after he joined AA, "Do the Next Right Thing." Hence, I have a real New Year's resolution: to blog at least once a week.
So whether it's Rosh Hashanah (we are in year 5773), the Islamic New Year (AH 1434 as of November 14, 2012), today's calendar new year (MMXIII, for those of you reading movie credits), or the upcoming Chinese New Year (we go from "year of the Dragon" to "year of the Snake" on this February 10), one should always jump at the opportunity to start anew. Indeed, this is why I like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol so much. Put the past behind and do things right, now. As Saint Paul put it in the first century A.D., "Forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forth myself to those that are before,
I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). OK, maybe that last part should be for my other blog, Red-Letter Catholic. So let me close, instead, with the words from Kung-Fu Panda, "The past is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, Today is a gift, that's why we call it the present."
