Thursday, January 3, 2019

Why are we so happy on Jan 1st?


It's a mass illusion. Hysteria of some sort. Come Jan 1st every year. all over the world, we all feel very happy. There is a spring in our stride. There is a smile on our face. The sky appears more blue, trees are greener and moon appears a little bigger.

Trust me, it is all in our minds. Nothing has changed. The Sun and the Moon are blissfully unaware of what we are counting. They are just charting their own course around celestial spheres without a hint of emotions. Birds are busy finding their own food, just like yesterday. Fish are swimming, just like yesterday. And as a famous forward goes - year is new but you have same job, same spouse but bigger targets.

Everything is the same. Yet magically all of us are feeling happy. We are digging thru our address books to send best wishes. I received some wishes from contacts who were completely lost somewhere in time dimension or space dimension or perhaps the wavelengths changed. But without fail all of them wished me and my family well. I totally appreciate that.

To me, our happiness on beginning of new year is tacit acknowledgement that nothing lasts for ever. Whether we like it or not we believe in circle of life. If 2018 was bad, we hope the negative cycle would be broken and steady accent will start. If 2018 was good, those who see glass half full try to make 2019 better and those hapless souls who see otherwise brace for negative cycle.

The modern world is filled with negativity. There are barriers of trade, religion, politics, cast, race, gender, generation, money ... virtually everything. I read pages and pages of daily news to find one positive, optimistic news. But what I love about Jan 1st every year is somehow everyone turns optimistic. Everyone believes things will turn out to be better. Somehow all the barriers would lower down. We hope that as everyone around us is going to be an year older it would make them nicer, kinder. We hope that experience of one more cycle of seasons would make us wiser. The world will take one step forward to be a happier place.

It is that silver lining to a dark cloud that shines brightly across the whole world which probably makes all of us happy just for a day!

Happy 2019!