After Christmas and until about a week into January, the words “Happy New Year” are still said over and over again as a form of greeting. We wish everyone a happy New Year by habit. But do we really mean it? And we do we really even know what it means and why we’re saying it?
Come to think of it, New Year’s Day is just another day. It’s simply the circling back of the calendar to the start. However, being creatures guided by measurements and bound by time, the significance of the beginning and end of a cycle and time periods is deeply entrenched in us.
As a religion-based cultural concept, we think of the New Year as a time of rebirth. “Because the Winter Solstice is the turning point of the year, beginning the lengthening of days, it has long been viewed as the birth of the year – by pagans celebrating the return of the Sun, and by Christians welcoming the birth of the Son of God,” explains beliefnet.com.
While we don’t actually experience rebirth, we would like to believe that we do, at least symbolically. There’s a sense of renewed hope as people everywhere usher in the New Year with celebrations and resolutions, as if it’s another chance to make things right, to better oneself, to make amends, to pursue one’s goals, and to keep moving forward. We wish one another prosperity and joy because those are the very things that we want ourselves. But why are these well wishes expressed at the beginning of the year?
Just like when starting or restarting a video game, we look at the New Year as an opportunity to correct past mistakes. While every day is a learning experience and waking up the next day comes with the potential to unlock your personal greatness, it doesn’t feel as massive as the New Year. And therefore, not as motivating and inspiring.
The New Year is grander as it seems like all of us – the entire human race – are making things right, bettering ourselves, making amends, pursuing goals, and moving forward. Or at least, we’re all planning to do so. Counting down to 12 midnight on New Year’s Eve is highly symbolic because we see that moment in time as the closing of a chapter and the opening of another.
Because we are innately sentimental, the New Year is also when we look back at the highlights of the year that was. It’s an emotionally bittersweet time for a lot of people because it brings back memories, both good and bad, and points during the year, both high and low. This is especially true when thinking about how to improve ourselves and our lives because it involves some level of introspection and takes us back to specific moments that we weren’t at our best. The New Year is personal as much as it is shared with the rest of the world.
So even if the phrase “Happy New Year” feels like empty meaningless words sometimes, we do actually need to say and hear it for reasons stated in the previous paragraph. It’s the repeated utterance of it for perhaps two full weeks that in a way keeps the words “happy” and “new” embedded in our heads. And we can’t help but be reminded to be happy because we’re all part of something new – a concept that we associate with renewal, second chances, opportunities, do-overs and the possibility to achieve great things.
It’s our way of congratulating one another for making it through the ups and downs of another 365 days of life and encouraging one another to strap up for the ride that is the next 365. It’s the palpable positive energy being exchanged that gives us hope and empowerment – that hey, we might actually be able to accomplish something here. And with all inspirational and inspiring people and things surrounding us during this time, we just might.
This is why it is with extreme hopefulness that I wish all of you a happy and exceedingly fruitful New Year. Cheers!
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