The beginning of a new calendar year or adding up of the calendar years’ count by one is marked by New Year’s celebration. Different cultures celebrate the occasion in different ways across the world. The month of January is considered to be the worldwide or conventional start of the civil year. New Year eve is no less than a religious festival in today’s era. People mark it as a holiday to forget the sorrows of the previous year and welcome the happiness of the upcoming one, forgetting that one more precious year of their life has ended.
For many people, the common theme of New Year is that December 31st is a time to look back on the last 12 months and reflect on how we’ve progressed and what we’ve accomplished. They celebrate the changes and trials that they have overcome, and they think this is the moment to do so and celebrate their survival.
The beginning of a new year is a time for introspection and consideration of possibilities, so it doesn’t matter whether you celebrate or party at the end. Most of us take out some time for ourselves to think about what we did in the last year, which affected our mental, physical and social life, and come up with a positive approach for the upcoming year. But from my personal experience, by evaluating yourself at the end of the year, there are least chances that you are going to be better in any way; better is to give yourself some time and try to build a positive change in yourself at any time of the year.
Predicting the upcoming year will come up with a success story for you to forget the downs of life. There is no assurance that you will achieve whatever you have set yourself for the upcoming year. Better is to get ready for the forthcoming failures and keep a firm belief that you will surpass them with confidence.
There is no proof of overnight success at the beginning of a calendar year. So, it’s better to make an effort to be optimistic while remaining realistic. Make a plan, but be prepared to change course if the situation changes to the downward side. On new year eve, while at a party or some function you’ll have plenty of company, but you forget that at the end you will have to go back home alone, face your life alone, and tackle alone whatever is going to come up in the coming year.
On New Year’s Eve, there’s nothing better than toasting to the fact that we’ve survived another year of life’s turmoil, that too in this pandemic where we lost many of our loved ones. In many ways, the trials of the past two years have been beyond distressing; either people lost their job, or their loved ones or their dedication towards work. Many of us had kept some goals for these two years, but few people succeeded. And we still are surviving in the pandemic, so let’s be positive, confident and ready to face challenges.
New Year’s resolutions are set by people all over the globe every year in order to achieve their goals, improve their overall health, and generally make their lives better. Many people succeed in following their New Year’s resolutions, but many others fail to do so. According to a Discover Happy Habits survey, 75% of people who make New Year’s resolutions keep them for a week. After two weeks, it reduces to 71%. After a month, the number lowers to 64%. And six months later, only 46% of those who set resolutions still keep them.
Beginnings and changes in our lives are sparked by the start of a new year; however, that spark should last throughout the year rather than fizzle out after a few days or weeks. Instead of making emotional resolutions that you may later realise to be impracticable or uninteresting, you should learn to make practical resolutions that are based on common sense and facts rather than on emotion.
A fresh beginning may occur on any day of the year if you make the decision to start anything new. Although a new year does not immediately transform us or our attitude on life, it may serve as a natural beginning point for altering our thoughts and actions.

—The writer is a student of Civil Engineering at SSM College of Engineering

Mohmod Irfan Shah