I’m not one for big new year resolutions. I trust more in day-to-day incremental growth in most matters of life. Of course, I also believe in the ‘Quantum Leap’ (word to Pastor ‘Poju) — a dramatic, unpredictable, sudden geometric growth brought about by factors out of one’s direct control. But Quantum Leaps don’t happen to dead bodies. They happen to people actively doing, working… moving. You’ve gotta walk before the leap.
You see, the Quantum Leap is sort of like a huge wind on the sea, that drives the sailing boat roaring to its destination. Sailors don’t create the winds, but they are always prepared, carefully setting their sails to capture the force which drives them in the direction of their destination. The ill-prepared sailor gets destroyed by the same wind that drives the expert sailor home.
I was discussing with the team the other day about the concept of the “new year” and how it’s really just a social construct. Think about it. It’s not like there’s an actual visible change that happens to the physical world around us at the stroke of midnight on December 31/January 1. The air stays the same, apart from light from fireworks and the sound of cheering churchgoers. The sun rises at dawn, the birds chirp and the cocks crow. It’s just another day.
However, I’ll be the first to admit that there are serious spiritual, material and secular benefits that come from taking the ‘new year’ serious — social construct or not. Whether we like it or not, our brains function better when things have beginnings and ends. Elite athletes need a starting block, a ring of the bell, a blow of the whistle to signify the start of an Olympic race, a World Cup match or a World Title fight. The starting signal comes on, and the athlete’s body and mind gets to work. The closing signal comes on, and everything shuts down, marking the end of the game, and performance is measured.
So, even if the physical world doesn’t really change on New Year’s day, our ‘mental world’ does undergo a reset. Whether we like it or not, the real world we live in runs on an annual calendar; corporations and governments release new budgets and new policies usually take effect in January. At the beginning of every year, the whistle of the material world we live in blows, and we humans set off once again on a pursuit of personal and professional goals.
And regardless of the understandable scepticism about new year’s resolutions and all that “Happy New Year” hype, it’ll be wise to see it as being more than a mere calendar change. We must respect and recognize the spiritual, psychological and material boost that is injected into the world at the start of every new year.
We should all draw from that big New Year Energy — just like wise sailors setting sail and letting the force of the wind drive them on to their goals and objectives.
Happy New Year Energy!
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