A happy new year depends on where you are

New Year’s Day is far more important than people tend to give it credit for. Even without going over the top with regard to celebrations or overburdened with good resolutions, our subconscious mind sees the new year as an opportunity for a new beginning. Here is a chance for a fresh start, to shed the s##t, refocus and generally straighten out the steering. It is good for us to have that one day in the year where we are almost forced to take stock and hopefully come out of it with a bit of optimism.

Everybody is wishing everybody a ‘happy new year’ and this column might as well do that now – rather than leaving it to the end. Happy new year, dear readers, friends and fans! However, as we have often pointed out on these pages, few things in life are simple and wishing somebody a happy new year could be way off the mark. For example, readers of the Westmeath Examiner Ethiopian edition won’t know what we are talking about, because their new year starts on September 11. (Some of you might remind us at the time!)

So, New Year’s Day depends on where you live or what your culture tells you. If I wish to convey new year’s good wishes to my ‘sweet ‘n sour’ provider at the takeaway down the road, I need to mark February 17 on the calendar because that is when the Chinese new year begins.

I promised you last year that I would not bring up the thorny subject of new year resolutions any more, being well aware of how unsuccessful the Lads have been over the years. I said at the time that the only resolution I was making was not to make any more new year resolutions. I have changed my mind this year and I am making one resolution. It is a private matter which I refuse to discuss; it will remain strictly between me and my confectioner.

For those of you who make new resolutions every year and habitually break your pledge, this column has come up with a master plan with you in mind. This plan gives you a second chance, or more! The just man falls seven times a day – so if you break your resolution say seven times in a year, don’t beat yourself up… just listen to this.

If your willpower lets you down after a week or 10 days, this is all you have to do. You just start again on another New Year’s Day. The Macedonian new year begins on January 14. Isn’t that just fantastic; no guilt and you try, try, again. You can keep this up as long as you like. The Hindu new year begins on March 22. That could be a good one after all the excesses of St Patrick’s Day; but if you’re still not ready for a fresh start, the Bengali new year is waiting for you on April 14. Don’t worry if none of those dates suit you. The Jewish new year starts on September 29… and sure by then you may decide that it’s not worth bothering with any new year’s resolutions until January 1!

People never have tired of making new year resolutions. Would you believe that the practice has existed for 4,000 years. The ancient Babylonians made promises to their gods during their 12-day new year (Akitu) festival, pledging to repay debts and return borrowed items. The Romans adopted the custom, naming January after Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and making promises for good conduct. The modern personal resolution thingy developed later – early written examples appeared in the 17th and 18th centuries – shifting gradually from religious vows to secular self-improvement goals. And if it is any consolation to you, dear readers, the success rate on maintaining new year resolutions is no greater today than it was 4,000 years ago!

Still… when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve; and many of us avail of the opportunity to hug and kiss all around us, you would have to be brain dead not to feel the boundless hope and renewal that the count-down delivers. It’s as if we are handed a blank canvas to draw our future on.

The certainty is that the new year will bring change, whether we like it or not. Let us welcome it with the right attitude, full of hope and wonder. Let us vow to laugh more and not be afraid to be seen doing the foolish thing every now and then. As I say to my Mayo friend Mick Rutledge, every time Mayo are pipped in an All-Ireland final; ‘we’ll stay at it till we get it right!’. That is how it is with the new year and someday I may get it right!

Don’t Forget

May your troubles in the coming new year be as short-lived as your resolutions.