New Year Statements

"New year, new you!"

"Hoping 2018 is better than 2017"

"Here's to a new year, let's make it better than the last!"

We all hear them every year (or see them on social media). They begin around mid-December and end at the beginning of January. The message is always the same no matter how it is worded, the previous year was bad, hopefully the upcoming year will be better. If you wouldn't mind giving me a few minutes of your precious time, maybe I could give you a fresh outlook on this old as time saying.

There is a hint to what I am trying to get at in the last statement that I listed at the beginning. "Here's to a new year, let's make it better than the last!" Making it better is exactly what will make it better. A year, a week, a minute, any point of time is going to be accompanied by good and bad. It all lies in what you make of it.

Let's use this scenario as an example, let's say I walk into a room and there are ten people in this room. Four of the people in this room are my best friends, three of them are people I do not like and the remaining three are people that I have never met. I have a choice as to where to keep my focus. Do I enjoy the time with my best friends, spend my time in this room in bitterness because of the people that I do not like, or allow myself to feel displaced because I do not know three of the people? There are other possibilities as well (like meeting the new people, or finding ways to like the ones that I do not like) but for this example, I would like to stick with these three options.

Most people would consider this scenario and say that they would obviously enjoy the time with their best friends. However, that is not the outlook that most of us have when it comes to other things. It is the same as the old "glass is half full" saying. A room has our best friends in it, we will choice to enjoy ourselves and our time with our friends. However, a year is full of friends as well. Sure there are people that we don't like that we have to deal with, as well as people that we don't know. A year (or any amount of time, but since we are discussing the new year statements, I'll stick with that span of time for now) is full of hardships, but it is also full of good times.

The answer to this age-old sentiment is in the perspective of the one who asks it. How do you make the new year better than the last? By focusing on the good. Work through your hard times, allow them to help you grow, then move on and find some good in it. There is always good to be found in any situation; sometimes it just takes a little work to find it. However, once you have learned this trick, you will have found the key to peace and happiness.

Instead of considering the bad from the year 2017, look back and ponder on the good things that came from the year. If you must look at the bad things, consider how you can learn from them so that they won't cause you any more harm. I know that this is much easier said than done, but the peace that it brings is very much worth the effort that it will take.

I have lived a life of hardship and at one time in my life was a very bitter person. I know very personally how hard this is, but I know how wonderful it is in the end as well.

Life is full of hard times and bad things. But focusing on that bad makes life even worse. Focus on the good. Let the light outshine the darkness. Spend the entire year doing that and see if your words might be different next December 31st.