Old Novelties of a New Year

If only we could start from the end, begin from a conclusion, act upon a given outcome, then life’s complexities could be simple, pain could be avoided, joy could be measured and happiness obtained without a gush of tears.
A resolution is a classic cliché on New Year’s Day together with thoughts of forgetting the past and expectations for better things to come. Underneath them are regrets for things undone, determination to change, and futile efforts locked in static reality.
“There is nothing new under the sun”, declared King Solomon, a ruler who prayed for wisdom as his only tool to reign upon his subjects. And in so doing, virtue followed together with wealth and peace.
Food has flooded the pantry. Sweets, delicacies and extra calories are still frozen. Wrappers and trinkets have not yet been kept. Unwanted, unneeded and unusable gifts, tagged with their receipts are lined up in stores, set up for another sale. The finish line for 2015 has passed its demarcation. Another year is up for grabs.
Whew, it is finally over! Now we can go back to our usual routines, our daily drudgery, the same old monotonous shifts we have been so used to; nothing fancy, nothing new. We will again load those bins with ribbons, plastic ferns, and a thousand lights back to its dingy place in the attic or under the basement. Parties are over. The new clothes are crumpled. The garbage cans are loaded.
Change is a drastic transition. Wanted or not, it comes, it goes, and it chooses winners or losers along its path. Certainty is a human need. Uncertainty is a given reality. We crave to acquire some morsels of assurance, no matter how vague the possibility. Hope then becomes our golden anchor as we cling to what is possible, while myriad uncertainties hover around us with fear, doubts, and a thousand excuses for not doing and being locked in mediocre stagnation. Every year is an opportunity to undo, a chance to start anew. We are, yet we become.
While the clock ticked its seconds before we hugged and fireworks flickered with a bang, the year passed with unwanted tragedies, many of them still unfolding. I started with a fragment, continued with more fragments, and it seems that I am shackled with figments, unable to move on. Certainties are possible when we create them. Possibilities are narrowed down when steps are embarked upon. Steps are initiated when we move our limbs. Conclusions become reality when the required premises are worked upon while uncertainties are those beautiful surprises that provide us with needed deviations, a space or time that forces us to regroup, rethink or recreate. Every New Year is a mixed bag of things we know and things we don’t, the concoction of which comprises the very essence of life. If in the beginning we get trapped and unable to move, it is because we grope for the right map, the appropriate path we need to take. Fragments eventually coalesce into a holistic scenario that falls into the clarity of a vision, the reality of which creates the bridges for our destination.
If only we could start from the end, begin from a conclusion, act upon a given outcome, then life’s complexities could be simple, pain could be avoided, joy could be measured and happiness obtained without a gush of tears. The fact is – we can start from the end. We can design that end when we form our own clarity, when we equip ourselves with the proper wisdom when confronted with uncertainties. There is nothing new under the sun. Everything basic human need has already been created. Inventions and discoveries are nothing else but an application of new perspectives. New perspectives emerge from unfulfilled wants converted into new needs, complicated by evolution and cultural advancements, expected events in the normal process of human growth.
We can control regrets when the proper choices are made. And even if choices are not right, they can be undone, amended and corrected. They are called new chances, promised premises of a New Year. So the fragments we start with gradually condense as inspirational forces. The conditional thoughts of hypothetical questions are already embedded with the proper responses. And just like King Solomon, all we need is the wisdom to unravel life, to know the difference between our needs and our wants, and to be able to scale our dreams into bits of achievements. Joy and happiness will arrive as a consequence of our actions and not as the finish line for what we do. When passion and talent are met with the knowledge and the action to do, that which we hope for will eventually reveal its face.
A resolution is a classic cliché. They are hackneyed and over-hyped. Actions are not. It is always better to do than to speak. So perhaps the best resolution we can have is not to have one, but to do one in the silence of our quiet sincerity. Routines do not need to be monotonous, but they remain as needs nonetheless or days will be without a structure, chaotic without direction. Foods have flooded the pantry. They will stale and spoil. Eat them and add inches to your belly. Use the energy they possess and have the force to work.
The novelty of a new year is finally over. Thank God it is gone! All that excitement, a momentary hiatus from the drudgery of our cumbersome life, the other side of the same face is now offering us with the same old chance for another change, an opportunity to adjust. God, in His goodness does not grow tired in giving us new chances, the only essence of what is truly new. That which we humans consider new is but an old transition of an old cycle, repeated so many times in the facets of history. But life is new, not because we live it, but because God does not take it. God provides us with all the chances we need. I have no credible arguments for non-believers. And I have no premises for those without Faith.
Happy New year, Folks! May you be blessed with new perspectives to unravel the applications of knowledge you already have! May you have the wisdom that brings virtues we all need for a better earth. May you know the difference between what you need and what you want, ran away from the unneeded misery of clinging to things in excess, and evolve with more abilities to be human! Above all, may you be able to find time to give and discover reasons to let go. For in doing so, the science of achievement can fuse with the art of fulfillment, the joys of success will link with the happiness of being, the very core of life’s meaning.