After I read Sarah Miller’s compelling New Yorker column “Cancel New Year’s Eve Forever,” not only did I agree, but I got to thinking about why people make such a big deal about the so-called new beginning the replacement calendar brings.
First of all, how many beginnings do each of us get? If the beginning involves a new craft, a new skill, a new project, a new way to improve our lives and the lives of others, then the answer is “an infinite number.” Because each of us should be ticking off items from a bottomless bucket list every day of our short and precious lives. The world is too big — the universe is too vastly big — for any of us to box ourselves in and limit our literal and figurative diets to corn flakes and fast-food cheeseburgers. Do you want fries with that?
