Happy New Year!

This is the time of year when perfect strangers share a rather substantial “wish” with one another without thinking twice about it. We toss off “Happy New Year!” as though it meant roughly the same as “Hi”.

If we stopped to think about it, we might recognize it as something more akin to a prayer, or at least as wish. We are saying to whomever we are greeting, “I wish for you, I hope for you…a Happy New Year”.

It’s probably what we also wish for ourselves. I think that is what is behind the things we resolve to do differently in the New Year; this desire to be happier and to have those around us experience the same.

In “The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks”, the fictional character that goes by that name writes this:

“If only I could drive myself to do physical jerks for an hour a day, read improving books for an hour a day, practise on the piano for an hour a day, philosophize and ponder on life for an hour a day, eat less, drink less, sleep less, work harder, eat wholemeal bread, drink eight gallons of water a day, stop smoking, and overcome my ribald disdain for nice, simple people who, whatever their shortcomings, Mean Well, what a wonderful fellow I should be!”

Indeed! If I could do all that, I too would be a wonderful fellow. But I can’t, and you can’t, and the character doing the writing clearly knows that he can’t. So what can we do?

This Sunday, I want to offer the modest proposal that although there are many things we may wish for that we cannot cause (including a Happy New Year), we can choose what star we follow as we move forward, and which star we choose has considerable bearing on where we end up.

Let’s start this journey off in the company of others. We will meet on Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m., 493 Notre Dame (Independent Jewellers, 2^nd floor). I look forward to seeing you there.

Peace,

Tim Plett