New Beginnings

It has always baffled, rather amused, me over all the new years, how I’m told every time, “how to spend” my new year. Of course when I was younger, that toy world. or that free chocolate pulled me in! Well now that I am. . .*ahem*. . . ‘wiser’, I recognize it as an advertising gimmick, which only hardens my resolve to not fall for it. .  As I look through the newspaper, it gets me thinking. . Does starting a new year require any special effort? Does it need to be special? Do I have to search for the perfect space, the perfect time, the perfect way to make a new beginning? Does it even matter at all? After all this occasion comes, well…… every year. .

As I pondered over this, I skipped through in my mind’s eye thinking back to how I celebrated the coming of a new year over the decade. Mostly it was screaming away with a couple of kids, wishing each other a ‘happy new year’, distributing sweets, making resolutions with rigor, knowing that sooner or later we may end up breaking them! Yet that never bothered us, because making resolutions, screaming out wishes, hogging on sweets, chocolates made us feel alive for that moment. .

Our psyched faces as we did a countdown from 11: 59 to 12:00, the tension around us, the high pitched shrieks, and screams that filled the air as the clock finally struck twelve, the joyous fist thumps, the cheer, the joy, the smiles, and maybe even the tears – being equally immersed and surrounded in it. . Isn’t it ironical how we try to begin every New Year with so much joy, cheer and grandiosity, and yet as the year progresses all this fades out? The year that we looked forward to with so much hope, with so many resolutions. . . when it has finally come somehow it seems we have forgotten to live it . . somehow life has now turned to existence, a state of being, bleached of all the beautiful colors, devoid of all the happiness and tears that makes life what it is. . somehow we have stopped treasuring that which we are given, and lost amid the celebration, we have celebrated the beginning, forgetting to value the journey.

New Year does not refer to the twelve to one parties, or the small gathering at our homes, or the somber speeches made at schools. . New Year is what lies ahead of us – a whole year! A whole new year, with its bag full of surprises, disappointments, shocks, happy news, sad news, tears, laughter, depressions, euphoria, and all that which makes ‘LIFE’. .

So hold on tight to all that which keeps you grounded, the journey is what the celebration is about, no matter how heart-breakingly sad, or how euphorically high you soar, know this : Life is what you make of it. .

So here’s to all of you. . may you journey across this rainbow of life with joy, cheer, and euphoria!

And maybe – just maybe – you will find that pot of gold!