When my family first moved to Pennsylvania, our only neighbors were a single young family with an eccentric head of household. The father was the kind of man who vehemently disliked certain aspect of modern society (I didn't get to know him well enough to determine whether he disliked them all), and his response was to simply do as he pleased, in a region where there weren't that many people who would bother him about it. He loved wood working, and would create a multitude of large, obnoxious wood cutouts to display on his lawn. He used a recreational telescope, despite the fact that in the Poconos, the clear skies are blocked by tree cover in every direction (I know this because I got my own cheap telescope for my birthday and struggled to with it for a single winter). He also burned his trash so he didn't have to deal with waste management companies, which seems like an innocent, personal decision until you find out the hardway that he threw bones and other meat by products onto the side of the road, where your dog will find and eat them before you have a clue what he's going nuts after. Ultimately, he moved his family away before I left myself, and I can't help but think that he was driven out by the addition of more and more houses on the street, combined with his refusal to accomodate other people being around him. On the other hand, the same could be said about my own family's refusal to keep our dog in check long after we should have, so maybe it was just us that pissed him off.
In any case, today I was reminded of one of my old neighbor's most memorable quirks - he refused to celebrate New Years Eve. As he told my mom, "there's nothing different about January 1st. It's just another day, so I'm going to go to bed early and get up as usual." An army of hipsters are nodding their head in agreement, and I admit that technically, he's got a point. Yet I can't ever shake the feeling that New Year's Eve is special, and more than that, I don't think I want to either.
Part of my opinion is due to the fact that, for some people, New Year's time isn't just another day. If you work in certain professions, then it is true that the Christmas/New Year's season is hardly different than any other (retail fits this mold, and as it so happens, my neighbor sold fish at Grand Union). On the other hand, if you are a student, or a certain kind of office worker, the end of the year is when everything shuts down for two weeks. When jobs give time off for the two holidays, many workers simply take off all the time in between to give themselves a break before life spins back into full gear in January. It may be an arbitrary machination of society, but like it or not lots people take a break at the end of December, and that makes it the perfect time to reflect on the year that was.
Another arbitrary machination is the New Year's Resolution, and while I think specific resolutions are a tricky topic, I don't at all disagree with seeing the New Year as an opportunity to start fresh. Some goals truly do take years to accomplish, and the start of a new one is a good time to assess whether you are making good progress. We can take the pessimistic route and scoff at all the people who so quickly forget their resolution to lose weight or quit smoking, but if you get pessimistic enough about it, then you take this failure as being a certainty. If only one person is truly inspired and motivated to change themselves for the better after the New Year, then that certainty no longer exists, and the pessimist has one less leg to stand on.
Here is my personal experience. I get into a rut whenever I get into a daily routine. I stop seeing what is ahead of me on the road of life, and I only focus on what is in front of me during any given day. This causes me to lose perspective. I forget just how close future dates are, or how little time I have to finish something. It is a huge problem, and I'm only ever shaken out of this stupor when I'm broken out of my routines. That is exactly what happens during my year end time off. Already I'm working harder than ever on preparing for my wedding, and I can once again see all the plans I have for 2012. Even better, I have more motivation than ever to make those plans a reality. I know that in just a few months some of this optimism will fade. Hell, maybe all of it will come April. But there is a slim chance that the fire and optimism will stick with me, and those are better odds than if I just went to sleep tonight and saw January 1st as any other day.
No comments:
Post a Comment