The Beginning of a New Year

On the last day of every year when the clock strikes twelve, millions embrace the promise of another year, intending to refresh with resolutions, marking the beginning of a new chapter. 365 days have passed, and another cycle with unknown beginnings and second chances begins. My family mostly travelled during this time of the year, escaping the cold of the last month in Switzerland to a warmer place with more sun and longer days. It was during one of these trips years ago where I first encountered the words resolution. My dad had introduced this concept to me, sparking a tradition that has lasted ever since. On every last day of the year, we would take some time to pause, reflect and think about five things we would like to do better from tomorrow. As a child I saw it as a fun exercise—rewinding and replaying the movie of an entire year, laughing at times, fast-forwarding through some moments, and often rewinding to hold on to the gifts of time a little longer. The more difficult part was crafting resolutions as they had to be more permanent and meaningful, ambitious yet practical to follow consistently for the better of the year, as I believed failing at this task would ultimately mean betraying myself. Thus, my big fives were very generic, almost too obvious and simple, though they still required effort and intention. Thinking about them now, I realize those early resolutions have been my guidance since. As a child they were expressed in different and far simpler language and were somewhere along the lines: Don’t lie unless I have no choice (that was when my elementary school best friend provided the justification of “white lies” in “emergency situations”), control my temper and don’t let it out on other people, meaning fight less with my little brother, always finish everything that is served on my plate, do homework diligently and get good grades, although I think the latter was mostly shaped by my Indian parents’ influence.

Today, as we have arrived on the last page of the calendar and another year is coming to an inevitable end, I find myself thinking back to these simple set of past resolutions whose essence remains so very relevant. To speak truthfully, for instance, reflects the understanding that the threads that hold our relationships together are based on trust, and that trust is very fragile. Choosing our words carefully reminds us that not every action requires a reaction, that sometimes silence carries more weight than any amount of words, which once spoken, can never be unsaid. Self-control might spare us from heated exchanges provoked by the the spur of the moment, leaving fewer broken bridges to be mended. Finishing everything served on the plate means to appreciate every single of life’s offerings. Completing homework on time teaches discipline, responsibility and the value of prioritizing things, even if you’d rather not attend to them until later. It also acknowledges the value of work. Like little ants carrying tiny grains of soil to build their home, the process of building on knowledge and hoaning our personal set of skills is gradual, done brick by brick. Although there is one thing that I would tell my childhood self, who earnestly believed, that hard work is what makes or breaks success. A lesson I’ve learned, one that I wish I understood before because it carries so much weight in my life now, is to work not for the fruit of work, but for the sake of work. I cannot deny the existence of a correlation between work and success, as mere statistics as well as my personal experience can easily defy such a claim. And while there may be some kind of connection, perhaps even causality between the two, what truly brings pleasure lies not in the pinnacle of the material success, but in the journey that leads up to it. It is the journey where we grow. And that journey happens every day.

Every morning when we wake up, we make a choice. The world is at our doorstep; We have a chance to start fresh, pursue our goals, change our environment, start a new habit, or even integrate small meaningful actions to our routine. Smiling more, greeting strangers on the street, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, reading a chapter before going to sleep or just asking somebody about their day can have a butterfly effect, sparking changes in ways we might never fully realize.

It is never too late to make a change; We don’t have to wait for a new week, month or year to start. In the midst of the discussions around New Year’s Resolutions, gym membership promotions starting from the first of the month, Dry January, Veganuary and all the rest, we fail to realise that each day is new. Dates and numbers are given more importance than they deserve, creating an illusionary impression that they somehow are more decisive, certain digits holding more sway over the outcomes of our lives than others. It would be naive to claim that beginnings don’t matter, as we often judge things by time marked in days and years. Yet, our perception of time is often flawed, our comparisons not based on constants as time is fluid, its motions ever so different than before. Even though we have packed many tiny boxes into larger ones and divided our year into months, our month into weeks, our weeks into days, our days into hours, our hours into minutes and our minutes into seconds, they may be identical in metric units, but there is nothing same about them.

I am not saying to abandon the notion of resolutions. On the contrary: integrate conscious change, self-reflection, assessment of our goals and environment, as a continuous exercise. The 31st of December certainly presents a good opportunity to do so, and it is hard to miss in the whirl of our everyday lives. However, we don’t have to wait. We might even waste time in remaining passive, using the next moment in time as an excuse to delay the changes we had promised ourselves.

Sometimes the desire for transformation is so urgent that it calls out to us in a pressing and impatient manner, that even letting the new thought sink in and waiting until the next morning feels late. That feeling of something being amiss doesn’t always emerge as part of a cognitive process, but may be a sudden comprehension, falling into place as fast as an unflinching drop of a heavy stone touching the ground in matter of seconds after being released. Interestingly, the protagonist of the book I’m currently reading, just had a similar realization. Trapped in her own inexplicable sadness she is drifting through cloudy, turbid waters of nonchalant melancholy, struggling to find air, tired to breathe. Just on one of those days where Dr Zaleekhah is hopelessly fighting the relentless passage of another unwelcome day, she learns that her 9-year-old niece is battling cancer and her sister is desperately searching for a doner to replace her kidney. In that moment, she is jolted awake and realizes with a start that something in her life must change. Like being pulled out of a trance, she slowly begins to see more clearly, stepping out of her own shadows, leaving behind one layer of darkness at a time.

The power of change comes from within. It is not bound or dependent on a calendar date, a weekday or a certain time, much less one set in the distant future. Change can be instant. This shift in perspective is what makes resolutions so meaningful. They are more than just promises made at the turn of the year; they represent a process of reflection and a genuine willingness to learn. Resolutions are powerful—but only if they arise from within, when the desire for change is so strong it cannot be ignored.

As we embark on another year, it offers an opportunity to reflect, renew, and continue the journey where we grow, advance, and falter equally, finally mastering past challenges while learning how to stand up to new ones. But we shouldn’t forget that we are capable of more. Our growth is not confined to New Years Eve or any other date for that matter that makes active change psychologically more digestible. Whether we want to accept it or not, everything is in motion, our surroundings constantly changing, incapable of remaining static. Much of it lies outside of our control, but what we can control is how we choose to act toward others and ourselves. Therefore, one of my resolutions at the turn of this century’s quarter will be to remind myself that every day is an opportunity to be better than yesterday.