If You Throw It All Away
It’s the New Year and I’m living the first day of it. Personally, the only reason why I recognize time markers like this is because it gives me an excuse to party or it’s a holiday and I can stay at home to rot. New Year is just another excuse to make noise and drink and binge on fatty food. It’s the day where people get their fingers blown off by thousands of pesos worth of fireworks and burn down neighbors’ houses. Fine, it’s also a religious celebration focusing on the motherhood of Mary, but we mostly celebrate it for how it marks the end of a crappy old year and welcome the glorious opportunities a fresh start will give us. Oh, give me a break. Most of the things everyone does on the day itself are enough to ensure that they stay in jail for the next few years. Robbers are timing ATM bombings with firework explosions, random guys with guns hit babies in the head and illegal fireworks backfire and explode on your house.
A fresh new start is overrated. Everyone thinks that if they forget what happened in the past and start all over again then they can make things right or forget all the bad things that have happened. Well, news flash to those people, mistakes can truly be learned from and if you try to forget your failures, you can never move forward. Yes, I know. Cheesy and annoying it may be, it’s true. Parents weren’t born before us for nothing and some of the things they say can make sense when you don’t turn up the elevator music in your head up too loud. Do you know that quote which says, ‘Failure isn’t the falling down, it’s the staying down.’? I think that’s one of the most inspirational things you’ll hear on the subject. If you give up or hope for a free pass like a clean slate or a new future, you’re only dooming yourself to a case of history repeating itself.
Keep moving forward, a line you may have heard in ‘Meet the Robinsons’. It’s good advice. New Year is just a period in our lives when we look back and reassess everything good and bad we’ve done. We leave behind the bad experiences and keep the lessons, while the good memories we take with us to give us strength in moments of adversity. It’s a checkpoint, a reference where we go back to and mark the changes in our lives. We have no choice but to face forward eventually to keep walking in the same direction. Distracting ourselves is good for a while, but time won’t wait for anyone and the sooner you figure out how to handle the baggage you’re taking with you into the new year, the sooner you an experience new things and open yourself up to more possibilities.
Hope is the working theme here, and though I hate to sound like I’m giving you a pep talk, or like I’m just trying to find a way to shatter your misconceptions on age old traditions, my intentions are sincere. I hate it that people cling desperately to the notion that they can do away with the blood, sweat and tears of the ending year. Let’s all take a moment and think about the little moments that make everything worth it- the few hours you spend with your friends in school, the isolated times you feel inclined to wake up at four in the morning to watch the sun rise, the afternoons with your family in a mall and the stolen minutes with that special someone. Tell me that all those things are worth throwing away just so you can forget the bad stuff. Happy New Year, everyone. Enjoy the end of a decade.
