While we enthusiastically sit tight for the New Year Eves gathering, the New Year itself brings high hopes, challenges, and new milestones for change and growth. According to the modern Gregorian calendar, New Year’s Day celebrated on 1st January is the principal day of the year. The Gregorian calendar stamps New Year’s Day as the “Feast of Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.” Indeed, even in the Julian schedule, the New Year day was committed to Janus, the divine force of passages and beginnings, for whom January got named.
The first day speaks to the new beginning of another year and is traditionally a religious banquet. But since the mid-1900s, it had likewise become an event to celebrate for individuals from all religions. However, the festivals of New Year began millennia prior in Mesopotamia, during mid-March. Egyptians and Persians utilized the idea of Vernal Equinox and observed New Year in March-April. Furthermore, the Greeks praised it upon the arrival of the Winter Solstice.
Consistently people notice the finish of one year as the start of another, praising the expectation and success it brings along. But if we talk about the year that we just left behind a few hours ago, I’m sure no one among us would be satisfied with the fact that it was a good year for them. Many lost their lives, many got uprooted, and many saw their aspirations to fall into pieces. It was such a devastating period that nobody expected, and obviously, none could help. The phase of life was depressing, and constant fear of death girdled the ambiance. Though the process of unlocking began, and people felt free, the uncertainty of complete safety continued. With New Year around the corner, where on one side, we celebrated the news of the C-Virus vaccine, on the other, the new mutant C-Virus strain happened.
Recalling the last New Years’ Eve, I remember people traveling around, students making plans, elders awaiting their children, traders longing for the prospering business, employees awaiting their leaves, and roads, public transports full of population. Every other person we could see had a spark in the eyes, shine on the face, and welcomed the new year with high hopes, dreams, resolutions, and with all the joy they could cater for their loved ones. But this new year, a smell of fear more than happiness in the air, fear of contracting with the C-Virus, fear of losing a loved one, fear of the prevailing conditions predominates.
If we go with the prevailing conditions, we can guess that though it’s a new year that always brought happiness and joy, this time, it has something more. Yes, this year has more challenges, greater hopes, the necessity of more safety, and thought in mind of when will we again live freely. And I know this scares a little, and how hard it feels to cope-up with the changing time. And how new challenges, or to say, adapting to a new different environment feels. But, time changes and life still goes on. Yes, it goes like that.
In conclusion, whatever the New year may bring, you need not bind all plans to another year, a commemoration, a birthday, or any date. You need not be at the lavish party; you need not have a rundown of goals on the off chance that you would prefer not to. Just remember, everything will change when you are eager to step forward. Do what you feel is right, do what your heart needs, for once without pondering how it may end up. For all you know, things have a method of getting themselves straightened out.
In particular, let the current year be a time of more confidence, graciousness, love, and humankind.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!!
