A New...Something

Blink and you'll miss it. Another year has come and gone and I've not even had a moment to take stock. Over the last few weeks I've tried to find a moment to myself so that I could have a proper look back over 2011 - my 2011. It was the first full calendar year that I've been at university. It was the first year when I went on holiday without my parents for the first time. It was a year of epic highs and of ultimate lows. I can delve into any day of my journal from the last 365 days and know that there was hardly a time in the year when my brain wasn't switched on - for better or for worse. But now I stand at the cusp of yet another year of my life and I'm not quiet sure what to make it it all. A couple of days ago I was excited about the prospect of the new year and what it might bring but, after a slightly flat start to 2012, I'm not 100% certain what to do next. 

What scares me most of all is that I'll be sitting in this very same chair this time next year saying the exact same thing that I am just now. In my head I build up big plans about things that I'm going to do, things I'm going to say and ways that I'm going to push forwards. However, instead of the mammoth steps that all of those things promise, I take baby steps and get not very far. I suppose if I was to map the last few years of my life then there would be a notable difference in the person I have become. You don't really notice yourself changing until it's actually happened and I've certainly had a few of those moments of clarity in the last year or so. I have to ask myself then, if I'm setting goals that are too far away from me to achieve or if those goals are achievable, just not in the way that I'm approaching them at the moment. At this time of year some people get merry, some people get sad, some people let it pass without so much as a nod but I tend to search for something new - something that I'm always trying to do.

It amazes me that every year, towards the end of December, people start to get all philosophical and profound about what they are going to do with their lives in the year ahead. It always seems to me as though the year that has just passed has been such a disappointment for so many people and that the one ahead of them is going to be so much better. I just can't quite get my head around the fact that this sense of change that seems to prevail throughout the nation in the lead up to the New Year only comes out at this time of the year. You always hear people saying that they will wait until next year to do something big with their lives - why can't that happen in the summer or at any other time during the year?

It might well be a new year on the calendar but as far as I can see there is nothing new about it. People will continue to make the same resolutions every year and will subsequently continue to disappoint themselves. I don't understand the new year thing and I don't think I ever will.

Thanks for reading,

Martin

P.S. Please vote in the poll that I've put up at the side of the screen for what you think the name of my next blog should be. If you have any ideas for names that are superior to the ones that I've come up with then stick them over on the Facebook page or at the bottom of one of my posts - many thanks!