Recently, somebody mentioned that the passing of the new year was just another day to her. She's right, of course; it's a day like any other. And, it is an arbitrary day at that; the Chinese New Year is in February after all, but our society has determined it to be Jan. 1. And yet, the time of the new year has special significance because this is a time when people resolve to do something in their lives differently. Even people who don't make formal new year's resolutions, I suspect, secretly try for a new direction in their lives. This new direction is always positive - doing something healthier for themselves, being more compassionate to their partners, recycling more, whatever it is. I've never heard of anybody having a New Year's resolution to do something destructive to people or engage in activity that would be unhealthy, like, "This year, I hope to smoke 2 packs a day rather than 1."
What I see is that the new year is a call to mindfulness; people are willing to give attention to something that they may usually be mindless about. We are able to see some of our delusions and have some awareness of our direction. Breathing deeply, we vow to try. Even if our new awareness and attention are only fleeting and we've already lost our direction by Mardi Gras, we had a moment of awareness. And that's really lucky.
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