Looking Back, Looking Forward - A New Year Underway

It is 2009; a brand new year. A time of reflection, but more importantly, a time to look to the future. We all have heard of traditions associated with the coming new year. Almost everyone at one time or another has made a promise to themselves or someone else to change something about their life. Many resolve to give up a vice, or to spend more time at the gym shedding those extra holiday pounds. Some people resolve to seek out a relationship with a significant other, while others promise themselves that this will be the year they are going to break out of some other mold or rut in their life. "I'm going to ask for that raise this year," or "This year I want to spend less time in the office and more time with my family." These are all noble and worthy things to aspire to, but I'll talk more about that at a later time.

Some other traditions that some of us know about might be a bit more localized. Many of us make a ham for the New Year's Dinner (or lunch or whatever). I'm not a big eater of pork, but I've noticed that this seems to be the holiday meat almost like turkey is for Thanksgiving. Personally, I think I'd rather have a steak. Also, at least where I'm from, we eat collard greens and black-eyed peas. My mother told me that the greens were so we would have dollars in the coming year and the peas were for change. Being younger, I thought she may have been talking about quarters, nickels, and dimes, but the more I think about it, I wonder if we don't want a different kind of change for the new year. Perhaps that is what she meant. I don't know. Another New Year's tradition my mother impressed upon me was that one had to be careful what they did on New Year's Day, because they would be doing it for the rest of the year. My mother seemed to take great fear in this concept and would spend as much of the day in bed as she could. This tended to have the opposite effect on me. Now, I realize that traditions and superstitions only have as much power over us as we allow them, but I still try to do something productive on New Year's Day. Even if it's as small of a thing as doing laundry. As a matter of fact, I've done the laundry every New Year's Day for as far back as I can remember. I've got a load running right now. Perhaps there's more to that superstition than meets the eye, but I figure, if I'm going to be doing something for the rest of the year, it might as well be something that needs to be done on a regular basis no matter what time of the year it is. Perhaps I'll shower today as well, maybe even make dinner, or go for a walk. Something productive that I can do just as easily on January 1st as I can on any other day of the year. I wonder sometimes at the irony that my mother (who has worked very hard all her life, don't get me wrong), spends most of her free time in the bed. Go figure.

I hope every one of you have a prosperous and peaceful New Year. I hope that you all find within you the personal strength that you really do have to keep up any resolutions that you make. Even if you don't make resolutions, I still hope that you experience all things good this new year. This is a chance to begin again. It's a chance to become something and someone a little bit better than we were before. Whether that means a small personal upgrade, or a complete systems overhaul, I wish you all luck. Perhaps this will be the year you look back on later and say, "Wow, 2009! What a year!"
Happy New Year,
-Griffin