No, that wasn’t a typo. I meant you and not year, because to me the New Year is all about a New You. I’ve always loved the idea of reinventing yourself. As a kid that special time for reinvention was always over the summer break, which gave me enough time to prepare the debut of my newly reinvented self at the beginning of the school year in the Fall. As I matured and my school days were put behind me, New Year's Eve took on a whole new level of significance for me as a time when adults reinvent themselves in preparation for the upcoming new year. During the final weeks of December after the Christmas cards have all been signed and sent and I’ve scratched everyone off my Christmas list, I begin a period of reflection where I examine the past year…my triumphs and my failures…areas where I succeeded beyond my wildest imagination and others where I fell flat on my face. It is with this knowledge that I make a list of goals for the upcoming year. I don’t call them resolutions because that term rings so empty to me. It speaks of lofty, unattainable ideals that are committed to only for a brief period of time before the euphoria of the new year wears off somewhere around week three. I’m not saying this is the true meaning of the word resolution, but rather how the meaning has been cheapened in popular culture.
