What's new about the New Year 2022?

- 3 minute read.

One more year has passed and 2022 is just around the corner. A new year brings in new hopes and aspirations. Most of us see changing of year as a big change happening. We take resolutions in the hope of adopting good habits or quitting old habits. Although my experience tells me that, most of them don’t last for more than a few days. In fact, many of them are broken on 1st January itself! :D

But when looked at it objectively, it’s not difficult to see that when a year changes, nothing actually changes; except the way write the date. Problems in the world are not going to vanish just because a new year has arrived. Poverty and inequality will continue to exist, Covid-19 is not going to disappear, global warming is not going to end; not just these but any problem that the world has on 31st December will still be there on 1st January! Same is the story of problems of our lives.

Any big events, like Jeff Bezos starting Amazon, Alphabet’s founders starting Google, development of Einstein’s theory of relativity, independence of countries from colonial rules, the unfortunate world wars; none of the historical events happened because ‘a new year has arrived’.

Sportspersons don’t start winning medals because of a change in year, they win because they practice and work hard for months, or even years. A scientist succeeds only because of the efforts she has put in. A company makes profits due to collective effort of employees and management. Nothing, I mean, absolutely nothing happens just because the year has changed. Isnt’t it?

Any change, positive or negative, favourable or unfavourable, happens due to change in mindset and actions. And guess what, mindset and actions, can be changed at any time, any month, on any day or just any moment, even at right now when you are reading this interesting post. Changes don’t wait for anything or anyone or a new year. Transformations can take place any time: at the midnight of new year or at any other second out of 3,15,57,600 seconds that a year has.

So, is it absolutely useless to have a new year? Why do we have the concept of ‘year’ in the first place? What I think is that having years has only 3 advantage. First is that, having a new year provides a stimulus for you to realize how much time has passed. Apart from this, I don’t see any other benefit at personal level. The second advantage is purely administrative. Dividing time in years helps in creating and managing systems and societies.

Hence, the next time you want to start a new habit, take up a new hobby, want to meet someone, or simply try something new; don’t wait for year, month, week, day or hour to change. Just start NOW and do it. And lastly, for those who are eagerly waiting, and are hopeful… Happy New Year!

- Pratik Badgujar