What are you demanding for yourself this year?
A new relationship? Making an old one new? Ending one that’s on a road to nowhere?
A change in habit? A healthier lifestyle? A commitment to losing weight? Handling stress better?
Fiscal improvement? Investing money? A new job? Less work?
Why do we place such pressures on ourselves over the tick tock of a clock?
If you really think about it, January 1, 2015, is just another day. But most people on this earth treat it as catalyst for a personal makeover. With a simple move of the second hand on our watches, we wash away the pain and anguish of the previous three hundred and sixty-five days and embrace the brand new year with hope for awesome opportunities ahead.
All because Pope Gregory XIII said the year would end one second and then start the New Year a second later. Think about that. We’re basing our emotional attitudes on what some guy declared almost five hundred years ago.
Instead of counting seconds, why not make each day count? Imagine waking up every day and having that same hopeful feeling you do on January 1st? That feeling you’ve wiped your slate clean and can achieve anything you want to?
Why do we wait three hundred and sixty-five days to have that euphoric feeling?
There’s a lot we need to accomplish in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Lots of things we still need to fix from 2014. As a nation, we need to figure out how we can correct pockets of excessive force used by law enforcement AND at the same time improve the appreciation we have of those that gracefully serve.
We need to figure out how to battle world-wide diseases without being isolationists AND protect American lives.
We need to establish a better, easier path for those that want to share in the American Dream AND protect the foundational laws that make this nation strong.
We need to help defeat oppressiveness in remote parts of the world as the Middle East AND set them up for success to pave their own path to freedom.
We can’t let these issues disappear with the New Year.
At the same time, January 1 can’t be our only day of hope. More challenges will arise in 2015. Let’s commit to tackling them head on as they appear, instead of hoping they fade away when the clock changes from 2015 to 2016.
One day isn’t enough to change the world. We need a lifetime.
Wal Ozello is a science fiction techno-thriller novelist and the author of Assignment 1989: The Time Travel Wars and Revolution 1990. He's a resident of Upper Arlington, Ohio and a frequent customer at Colin's Coffe