A New Start for All in New Year
We’ve done it.
We’ve reached the end of 2024 and are looking ahead to all the possibility 2025 holds.
Some may be planning to put 2024 firmly behind them and not look back, others may have much upon which to build from one year to the next.
Whatever the case — whether our dreams include making a national project of the year or just working harder on being the best we can be for ourselves and those around us — most of us can agree we are hoping for a year in which we are able to lift up one another and work toward the good of all.
On a personal level, there may be resolutions to be more fiscally responsible, eat better, exercise more, be more positive, maybe aim for higher career or education goals, live more in line with one’s faith or creed — we want to be and do better.
And on New Year’s Day, we give ourselves the grace of a fresh start.
Whether it be as a country, as a household or as individuals, we should remember that if at first we don’t succeed we must keep trying.
With a new year come new opportunities to try — again and again.
But for what else do we hope as the calendar turns over for another year?
How wonderful if, with this fresh start, humans did a better job of treating each other with compassion and empathy; if we followed the Golden Rule as put forth and offered to us as an example of how we should live in that most special of books.
How much better off we might be if politicians and the bureaucracy remembered they serve us, rather than themselves, and based all their decisions on what’s best for the nation.
Oh, the possibilities if children are encouraged to learn, explore, read, ask questions and think for themselves.
And this: if more of us had the time and resources to eat healthier and exercise more; if more of us had the time and resources to offer a hand up to those among us who are struggling; if more of us were able to do better for the planet … what a wonderful world it would be.
It’s a long list, isn’t it?
May we work to lift everyone as we hope to be lifted; may we remember all for which we can be grateful in this country and build upon it. May we be joyful, prosperous and fulfilled — and strong enough to get through the times we are less so. And may we, all, have a very happy New Year.
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“Learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow.”
— Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein
“New year is the glittering light to brighten the dream-lined pathway of future.”
— Author Munia Khan
“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.'”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
— Benjamin Franklin