The New Year is the world’s most celebrated holiday, it has been for at least as long as there have been calendars. This got me thinking about its meaning and the real significance of this holiday. Why we are drawn to celebrate it in such a big way and why is its celebration so common around the world for so many cultures?

Some would tell us that we honour the month’s namesake Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and ends who stands astride the end of one year and the beginning of the next, whose two faces allowed him to look simultaneously into the past and into the future. Others may say that there is no special significance, that we transition from one day to the next as usual but when the clock strikes midnight, marking the end of one year and start of another, it is very different. We take this moment to step outside our daily lives; we reflect, look back, take stock and assess the year gone by. We question how we did over the last 12 months and we resolve to do better, hence many people’s New Year resolutions.

The New Year can be like pressing a re-set button, we can give ourselves permission to draw a line under the past 12 months. Perhaps we can also forgive ourselves a little too, maybe we are not so happy with how we dealt with difficult situations and wished for better outcomes. We can allow ourselves to ‘start again’ and take comfort from the fact that others will feel the same way too.

I suppose we will each decide the New Year’s significance for ourselves, what it means to us personally and the impact it may have, or not, on our behaviours, actions and also how long they last! The New Year also brings hope, a feeling of expectation and a desire for something positive to happen. Perhaps this year we’ll see continued success in the development of a drug for Alzheimer’s which slows memory decline, further breakthroughs in cancer treatment, and cures for other life limiting diseases?

What we can be sure of is that each New Year brings the promise of new purpose, new goals, new hope and new intentions, it is an opportunity to create our own new beginning.

Best wishes for 2023.