Life's Little Goodies

Ah, a new year has begun once again. Or has it?

Celebrating the new year first began in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. However, the new year didn't begin on January 1 back then, it began on the first day of spring. The first day of spring is a logical time to start a new year. It's the time of renewal and rebirth in nature, a time of planting tomorrow's harvest, a time of newness.

On the other hand, January 1 has no astronomical significance. It doesn't coincide with the changing seasons, nature is in a state of dormancy and hibernation, there is no newness to the new year. As far as historians know, changing the new year to January 1 was arbitrary and lacked scientific merit.

Here's why it was changed...

By the year 153 BC the calendar had become woefully out of sync with the actual solar and lunar cycles. It didn't help that a year was 360 days in length. Attempting to set the calendar right, the Roman senate declared January 1 to be the beginning of the new year.

Tampering with the calendar continued until the year 46 BC, when Julius Caesar again named January 1 to be the beginning of the new year, but in order to once again synchronize the calendar with the sun, Caesar had to let the previous year drag on for 445 days.

Some say that for one year in history there was a December 32, a December 33, and so forth. Others say that there were new months added to the year. It doesn't really matter now.

Some 613 years later, in the year 567, the new year was again changed to the first day of spring. This lasted until 1582, when most of the world changed to the Gregorian calendar, and once again January 1 was the start of the new year.

So while recent history recognizes that most of the world has been celebrating the new year on January 1 for over 400 years, the first day of spring has been observed as the new year for a much longer period of time, and is the real beginning of the new year according to the natural order of the universe.

All through those calendar changes, one new years tradition has held steady. Making New Year's resolutions dates back to ancient Babylon, so the tradition is over 4000 years old now.

It's a logical time to reflect on the past year. It's a time to learn from our personal history and to evaluate ourselves in hopes of improving who we are and improving our lot in life. It's a beautiful and noble time of self-honesty for many.

It's also the time to reevaluate old goals and set new goals and to create plans of action that will, hopefully, become our stepping stones into a brighter future. Those that have had a trying year can breathe a sigh of relief and be happy for a new beginning with the dawning of a new year.

One of the incredible things about the human spirit is that, no matter how rotten things have become, we always seem to find the strength to renew our hope for better days ahead as each new year comes a calling. We greet the new year as a new lease on life. Then most of us go right on doing the same old things, expecting different results.

One of the incredible blind spots we humans seem to have is that we can walk down the same path each day and expect to come out at a different location. We don't stop to think that if we want different results, we have to do something different than we have been to achieve it. The other incredible blind spot we seem to have is that we fail to treat each day as a new beginning. We needn't wait for a new year to have a fresh start, if we'd only wake up enough to realize it.

What's the difference between January 1 and May 22? Or any other day for that matter?

Every day is a new beginning. There is no reason to drag the chains of yesterday around with us today. If you've been having a tough go, any day can be the beginning of a turn around. There is no reason to wait for a new year to begin hoping, planning, and working for a break from past tribulations.

The trouble is, we forget each day is a new beginning. We take our troubles to bed with us and we wake them up when we arise the next day. Living this way, the new day is half burdened before it has started. No wonder people so look forward to a new year.

When 2005 comes a calling, would you like to be able to look back on 2004 and say it was a great year? Would you like to be able to say it's been one of the most satisfying years of your life? Would you like to say you are a better person at the end of the year than you were at the beginning? Would you like to say you made the world a better place? Then plan for that to happen.

If I leave it at that, many won't know where to start, so I've made a ten-point plan on how you can achieve all that. Read the short list, then ask yourself, if you follow through on the plan, will it really help you achieve those impressive goals? I think if you're honest with yourself, you'll agree that if you followed the steps outlined, you'd be more likely to have a very important year than you would if you just kept doing what you've always done. If you do agree, then all you have to do, is do it. Here's the plan...

1. Greet yourself when you get up each day by smiling at yourself in the mirror, remembering that yesterday is gone, that today is a new beginning, and tell yourself today will be one fine day. Be happy to be alive! You know that a happy life isn't one made up of huge triumphs each day, so you remind yourself that you will look for the many small daily joys that are the building blocks of a truly happy life.

2. Be the first to smile and greet your family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances each day. Notice how their spirit seems to momentarily pick up a little because you smiled at them, and never underestimate the importance of that. Notice how good it feels when they smile back at you. You know that smiling at someone makes them feel good about themselves and it feels good to you to smile, so you're smart enough to realize giving someone an uplifting moment through a friendly smile is a double-blessing.

3. We all have our secret sorrows that others know nothing about. Try to give at least one sincere compliment to someone each day. You may never know how important is was to someone, but you do know how important it is to do your part to make the world a better place. The least deserving person may be the one most in need, so the who of it doesn't matter, the do of it does. You will expect nothing in return, knowing that some of our best blessings happen because of previously unrewarded acts of kindness.

   You might also want to find one honest compliment you can give yourself each day for something. Many of us are too critical of ourselves. Self-appreciation, if not for vanity's sake, helps us to learn to like ourselves in a deeper way. The better we honestly like who we are, the more others will like us. If you can't find one thing you like about yourself each day, perhaps others are having a hard time finding one too.

4. Make an effort to try to understand other people's points of view. Listen with undivided attention instead of thinking about your reply as they talk. Few things are 100% one-sided. Understanding others may lead to the truth somewhere in between, and being on the side of truth is always better than being offsides.

5. Be willing to consider that you may be wrong, or have done something wrong. Apologize if you have. Apologizing never makes you smaller, it lifts the other person up from the diminished position you put them in. Their full appreciation of you can't be restored until you lift them out of the hole you put them in. An apology does this.

6. Lighten up and keep your cool. If you're becoming angry, ask yourself one thing: Will what you're becoming angry over be important next month? Most of the time we are overreacting. Find something to laugh about each day. Laughter is medicine for the human spirit.

7. Avoid malcontents, staunch pessimists, and other energy stealers. They do nothing to build you up, and their attitude only serves to drag you down. If they had their way, they'd drag everyone down to their level of discouragement and despair. Also be aware that we are all equals on this planet, and that even the most unlikely person can provide an important lesson in life.

8. Be optimistic. If you're not an optimist now, this takes practice. As a reformed pessimist, I promise you it's well worth the effort. The optimist and pessimist are both right, but only one makes a constant companion of hope. Where hope is, there too dwells happiness.

9. Read something uplifting, encouraging, and enlightening each day. Rid yourself of the mental pollution that masquerades itself as literature and entertainment. You don't eat garbage from a dumpster, don't make your mind a dumpster for garbage either. As your body becomes healthier or weaker by what you feed it, your mind is also made strong or weak by what you feed it.

10. Spend five to ten minutes each night reflecting on the day. Try to remove your ego from your reflections and be honest with yourself. Learn what you can from it. Then place Today into a box in your mind labeled Experience and put it into storage. You will only refer to it when you need to, you will not take out and drag it around when you get up tomorrow - for remember - tomorrow is a fresh beginning.

Life is about relationships, with others and with yourself. As John Donne penned, "no man is an island." Making a habit of these simple practices will help you build better relationships. They will help you discover insights and help you live more deliberately and with more purpose. They are life-enhancing practices that will allow you to lead a happier life.

The seeds you plant today will become the harvest you reap on an unknown tomorrow, so today is the key to your future. It has always been so, only now, you realize there is no new year, there is no new beginning at some future time, there is only today. That's how you have the greatest year of your life - one thoughtful, intelligent, joy-seeking, productive, reflective, caring, kind-hearted, hopeful, purposeful, thankful day at a time.

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives . . . not looking for flaws, but for potential.
- Ellen Goodman

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
- Benjamin Franklin

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly [brave] heart.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow