A New Year's Wish

So, yet another New Year arrives at the speed of light - and will disappear as quick. Best to fire up your resolutions as fast as ye can, so, as they'll all be mere what ifs and after-thoughts before you know it.

Last night I read New Year's Eve, a rumination on this time of year by the English essayist, Charles Lamb, written in 1820. I remember the piece well from school and it was fun to read it again, from the very different perspective of being of a certain age! 

Even if old Charles was not writing anything truly ground-breaking, (not even at the time), I re-learned a few life-affirming lessons from this fine essay, namely that:

• it is impossible to regard the new year with indifference as it offers us all a yardstick to meditate on how far we have come in our lives and then to draw on this to measure how much we've left to go or what we've left to do.
• to this end, looking back is as important as looking forward, because you can't just 'welcome the coming and speed the parting guest' - the balance is a fine one.
• few under 30 think of mortality but after that age everyone thinks of it a great deal und thus we should be 'content to stand still at the age at which I’m (we're) arrived'.
• no matter how hard you try to fight against time or meet its challenges with a smile, you're fighting a losing battle. (It was hard to keep a straight face as I read Charles' triumphant words of defiance, 'I survive, a jolly candidate for ... 1821!')

I suppose all these reflections are based on the truth that Time will pass either way and the best you can do is to try to manage the tiny portion you have been allocated in the best way you can and see how far you get - always remembering that, this time in T.S. Eliot's words, 'to make an end is to make a beginning'.

Happy New Year!
 

More soon ...

Rolleth on 1821, hometh-boys!