Out with the old and in with the new! New Year’s Eve! The end of our past and the beginning of our future! All over the world, we count down the minutes and then seconds until a New Year begins. New Year’s Eve represents a finish and a time to put failures, bad dreams, and a year dominated by the Coronavirus behind us. New Year’s Day represents a new beginning. We pray and hope that each year will be better than the last. Curiously, we celebrate this ending with a night of wild parties and much drinking which is not a good way to start off the New Year. Thus, may I suggest a bit of Greek wisdom, “Moderation in all things.”
Do you ever wonder why so many people get drunk on New Year’s Eve? Is it simply to forget the past or is it to celebrate the past? How many New Year’s days have been ruined before they even got started? Tonight we drink, tomorrow we make promises about how different our lives will be and what changes we will make. Each New Years is a time 
of magic. We think it will mean great differences in our lives, but how long do these commitments usually last? Go to the health clubs on New Year’s Day and the parking lots will be full (Of course Covid 19 has changed this little fact). By early March, the parking lots will usually be back to their normal contingent of cars. The landscape will be littered with failed promises and failed New Year’s resolutions. Some may think that they can escape this debacle by simply not making any resolutions. Instead their failure to make any commitments remain with them day after day. Not making a commitment is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Thankfully, we have 365 chances each year to start our life anew. You don’t have to wait until New Year’s Day to begin again. Each day you fail, tomorrow can be a new start. If each day your commitments can last a little longer than the last time, you are making progress. You do not have to wait until next New Year to start over. Start now but get back up each time you fall. The only failure in life is not trying and trying again. Each time you fall down and you get up again you are a success. Each day that you make a new commitment to try, you are a success. Each time your commitment lasts a little bit longer than the last time you are a success. So here’s to the success of each of you this New Year. I drink a toast to all who try and try again.
Time for Questions:
What are you going to change in your life this New Year? What would you want to do differently? What changes would help you to lead a happier and healthier life? What are you going to do about it? How long will your commitment last? Can you fail and then keep trying?
Life is just beginning.
Tonight is the first day of your new life. Don’t wait to start.
Karen says that I should start our annual holiday letter off because I write better than she does. Well, since it is the holiday season, I will let her slide. For my part, (Karen will add hers in a short while), I promise not to talk about politics, religion or philosophy. We are all sick of politics and you are probably only marginally interested in the latter two topics. What’s left then? Well, I was thinking that I just turned 70 in September. I never believed that I would see 30 years of age. Now here I am 4 decades later pondering the same mysteries of life that I pondered forty years ago. Feeling a little nostalgic, I got to thinking about the “firsts in my life.” For instance, my first kiss and my first job. So how about participating in a little nostalgia here and fire up your memories as well. I have posted a list of “my firsts” with my responses to each item. List is on the left with my responses to each one on the right. Can you remember your answers to my list? I would love to hear your list of firsts. Please post your FIRSTS in the comments section if you can remember what they are and don’t mind sharing.
Hi all. I think I’ll stick with my firsts for the past year. My first Dulcimer Jamboree in April, 2016 in Mountain View AR where I met the dulcimer 9 years ago. A fateful meeting it was. My first chromatic travel dulcimer which I took with me to New York in Nov. My first raised bed garden this past summer made from old discarded stock tanks. It produced more food than we could eat and it was so easy to weed and harvest. My first grandson, Garrick, getting married to Kat this coming spring. My first viewing of an opera at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. My first concert in Carnegie Hall. My first trip up the Statue of Liberty and out to Ellis Island to look for ancestors.
It’s been a full, fun and sometimes exhausting year. We still work part time to support our “snow birds” lifestyle. I’m working with start-up home care agencies, teaching and consulting, and ICD 10 coding. John has taught both on-line and residence classes. We escaped our part time work with trips down to Kentucky for Kentucky Music Week, trips to the ocean in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, and a fall anniversary trip to Bayfield, WI. And, of course, the trips back and forth from WI to AZ where John tries to find new unspoiled routes each time we go.
Aging Capriciously 