Friday, January 1, 2010

New Jeers

"Happy New Year, everyone!  This year is going to be fantastic!"

I have to say, I detest this sentiment.  I've never liked New Year's Eve parties, or making resolutions.  I think it's all a big waste of time and energy.  In case you haven't been clued in, every day is the beginning of a new year.  Each day is a chance to start over, from scratch, and make things different than they've been before.

I take particular offense to someone telling me how fantabulous the upcoming year is going to be for us all.  Really, Kreskin?  Did you look into your crystal ball and see bluebirds, puppies and lottery jackpots for everyone, or are you just full of shit?  If you'd pressed pause on your life for a second and taken a look at mine, you'd see that things are far from fantabulous in the Noelle neck of the woods.  As hopeful as I'd like to be, I'm more realistic about the fact that things are going to be stormy for a while before the clouds start to break.  So don't insult my intelligence with your generalized niceties about how you just know things will be different this year.  You said that last year, and the year before that...  Was anything really that different?  Not particularly.

This isn't to say that I'm not hopeful for better things to come.  I am.  I want things in my life to be better than they are currently (read my previous blog to see a shining example of why).  I also know that things don't change with the ceremonious dropping of a ball in a far-flung city, or eating black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's Day.  I'll stick with the latter tradition because it's tasty, though.  Change takes work and dedication.  Change takes facing adversity.  It means finding something to believe in, and sticking with it even when everything seems like it can't get any worse.

Most of all, change means focusing on what you have right now and not being overly concerned with the future.  Things happen, plans change, promises get broken, lives get altered.  The only way to know for sure that things will come out okay is to focus on what you have right this minute, even if it isn't much at all.  I guess that's why I get upset at the notion of all this New Year's fanfare.

So stick your "Happy New Year!" midnight text where the sun don't shine.

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