What will another new year bring?

Because we use the Gregorian calendar, our New Year’s Day falls on Jan. 1.

Other cultures and countries have at different times used other days, but now Jan. 1 is accepted internationally as the first day of the year. Aspects of the calendar year are determined by cycles of the moon and sun.

We all hope that 2013 will be a good year for everyone, particularly ourselves.

That doesn’t mean we’re greedy; if we have a good year, very likely many other people will too.

Oprah Winfrey put it well: “Chance for a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”

We may make resolutions for ourselves. Some will plan to pay off debts, have more fun and lose weight; some will actually lose weight eating less fattening foods. The YMCA and other local businesses will offer exercise plans to help them. Carrying them out can be much more difficult than making the pledge.

As Mark Twain said in the following, partial, quotation: “Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds …” You and I won’t do that will we?

We will have very important national wishes too? The war soon should be over and most of the troops brought home. Improved gun control laws should reduce or greatly reduce those terrible mass shootings. We have many areas where improvement is needed.

And now 2013 it is. The number 13 is an unlucky number for some people. This fear of a little thing like numbers has a big name, “triskaidekaphobia.” Many believe. A demonstrated result of that belief is hotels don’t have a 13th floor. Going up, it is twelve and fourteen next.

Another example too — New York City, famous for its New Year’s Eve Times Square celebrations and entertainment. This year they have a seven foot, brilliantly lighted, number 13 that will be demonstrated along with their giant ball drop.

Even though the 2013 New Year begins like most days have begun for each of us every day we’ve lived. But 2013 is a brand new year. We can make definite plans for it. We may have tried some self-improvement before and may not have been able to carry though. Let’s make 2013 different.

This year, I’m going to do a very simple self-improvement. I am going to smile at every individual I meet and nod at least, or lift a hand in greeting, say something other than, “How are you?” We hear that greeting so often that it gets to be tiring. How did we ever adopt that saying just meeting someone on the street? We really don’t want to know and we have places to go with limited time.

We are most likely all interested in some form of improvement in 1213, personal and more broadly. Some of the progress we hope for is new and some is very old such as Bud Brand pointed out in another of his poems entitled Progress Millions of things have been invented,

Even space travel is old,

So why is it no one has found,

A cure for the common cold.

Tags: community, seniors, health