Happy 2022

It is New Year’s Day.

It is grayish still morning right at the freezing point.  Things have the feel of a quiet before the storm which is set to start anytime now.  The forecast is for 5 to 9 inches of snow in the next 18 hours. 

Before settling in to write this first piece of the New Year, I stumbled upon and watched a Robert DeNiro movie, Everyone’s Fine.  This 2009 film also stars Kate Beckinsdale, Sam Rockwell, and Drew Barrymore.  This film, made in the depths of the Great Recession and watched this morning in the depths of the pandemic, was a bittersweet tale of a father reconnecting, actually connecting for the first time, with his adult children in a meaningful way.  I had avoided watching the film because I thought I wouldn’t like it.  I was wrong.  It was a perfect film to watch on this New Year’s Day morning.  It reminded me to love and accept one’s children for what they are and not what I may have wanted them to be.  Another message was to communicate as honestly as possible.  The same applies to grandkids, friend, family, acquaintances, and co-workers to some degree.

I am glad I watched that film before jumping in and writing this New Year’s Day blog.  Before watching the film, I was not sure what exactly to write about.  I thought, perhaps, to outline what my goals and resolutions for the new year might be.  But upon rising this morning and appreciating the gloomy calm before the storm, I had a different thought. 

Today looks pretty much like yesterday.  Sure, yesterday was the end of 2021 and today is the first day of 2022.  But that is an artificial demarcation created by us and that we have come to make a big deal out of.  Nothing really changed from yesterday to today.  The weather is the same.  I am the same person.  I have the same strengths, faults, desires, and worries.  The same is true of most others I know. 

In thinking about this, I went back in history before there were calendars and clocks.  In those times, things were presumably measured by moons, seasons, and day and night.  Everything was done on the agrarian cycle of planting, tending, and harvesting.  Spring was a time for renewal and planting, from the Persian perspective it signaled the start of the new year.  Their Nowruz is on the day of the spring equinox.  The New Year’s Day we are celebrating today is most likely based on the winter solstice which is the shortest day of the year.  It signals, as does Nowruz, the start of the next planting, tending, and harvesting cycle. 

It is good, for me at least, to remember this perspective.

So, should I make resolutions?  Sure. I do every year.

But it would be much better to create a mindset and strategy to create the lifestyle change to change my habits and behaviors to ensure the resolutions are actually and finally realized.

This is the real trick.  The setting of resolutions can be done in minutes.  It is the keeping the resolutions and realizing the goals that is the real challenge.  I have been trying to figure this one out for many years.  I know I am not alone in this frustrating challenge.

In the meantime, I am with everyone else hoping that 2022 is the year we can put the pandemic behind us. 

Happy New Year to one and all.