Belief and Possibility

New Years is a funny sort of thing. Considered in a vacuum, it’s an entirely pointless exercise. There’s nothing particularly special about January 1, you know? It’s just another day on a calendar Mankind created as a way to know whether or not you should be mad at someone for not being where you wanted them to be at a given point in time. Darn it, this whole ‘three sunrises from now’ thing is just too vague…I KNOW! I’ll put NUMBERS on it!

There is no New Year Fairy who comes along at midnight on New Year’s Eve to wipe away all the things that block us; there is no astrological event which resets the natural world in any way; there’s absolutely nothing about New Year’s Day that should cause any of us to feel that things can or should be any better going forward than they were the day before.

But, nevertheless…there is a kind of magic to it, born out of our common consent. Collectively, we choose to believe that there is, too, a magic at work in the flipping from one calendar year to the next.

A “bad” year can be put in the rearview mirror, and need have absolutely NO influence on the new one. Resolutions can have more power at this time of year than any other. Even if we have met with failure in years past, this year does not have to be shackled to them.

It is a new, unspoiled thing. A blank canvas, ready for us to draw with ever more experienced hand the life we want for ourselves. Because we said so.

It’s completely silly. Childish, even.

But, human belief is an incredibly powerful thing. When we believe something is possible, no matter how enormous a task it may be, if we really believe we can do it…we will. As long as we do not succumb to doubt, as long as we are willing to keep getting up after we’ve taken a fall, as long as we see these failures not as hard-stops but rather as learning how not to do that totally possible thing – we will do it.

And, if we all really believe that there is a magic to the beginning of a new calendar year – then, there is. Because we just made it so.

So, happy 2014, y’all: I hope your new year is made of all the things you dream; that you will have, do and be all the things you dare to believe possible for yourself; and that doubt will just shut up for a change and let you be awesome as you go into it.