The New Year as an Invitation to Renew Our Hope and Faith

I agree with the skeptic people at this point: the change of calendar is an arbitrary conventionalism. The great German novelist Thomas Mann used to say it: “Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year.  Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols”.

The thing is that we mortals need to believe beyond the reason. We are constantly looking forward opportunities to renew our hope. And New Year’s Eve is one of most popular and traditional chances we have to do it.

That’s why we launch fireworks, we keep old rituals and ceremonies, we send post cards  with good wishes and we toast dreaming with an upcoming brillant future.

All of these gestures and actions enclose our yearning to leave our pains and problems behind and with them, we find the the impulse to try again, or for the first time, to walk towards the conquest of our deepest desires.

Maybe the skeptics are right, the change of a calendar by itself doesn’t change anything. But it’s a good excuse to meet or re-meet the best part of us, the one with the potential and strenght to start again with faith. And that’s a big deal.