It can be very tempting to discredit the idea that a new calendar year actually means anything. We change a ‘0’ to a ‘1’, and we still have the same problems today that we did yesterday. As we can see from this week’s events, sometimes those problems continue to grow and reach an unprecedented watershed. It’s similar to the feeling of someone asking, the day of your birthday, “do you feel a year older?” The answer is typically no, I feel as much older today as I did yesterday from the previous day. Change is incremental, and expecting instant gratification or, as it were, immediate and lasting change is often disappointing.
What is the point, then, of making any kind of deal about the New Year? Does it do anything for us?
According to Katy Milkman, Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, recognizing a beginning can be good for our brains. The “fresh start effect” allows us to psychologically separate chapters of our lives, organizing our memories and separating our present selves from our past. “That me,” we think, “used to do stuff that this me is not going to do.” This separation motivates us and gives us energy to make the progress that we decided on. Beginnings and endings prompt time for reflection so that we can go into the new intentionally. It’s harder, after all, to check in with yourself seventh week than it might be first week.
A fresh start doesn’t need to be naïve nor dismissive. You have a lot in common with your past self, and that person probably wasn’t all bad. Having hope in your new self, and in a new year, isn’t predictive of how the year will go, but it’s good for us right now, and that matters.I’m not much of a computer scientist, but as far as I understand, in a binary system, ‘0’ signals false while ‘1’ signals true. May this year be filled with more truths and the ability for us to sit with and accept them.
Iman Jafri
Associate Chaplain for Muslim and Interfaith Life