New Year’s Eve tradition boasts a cross-cultural claim to celebratory compulsion. But the day itself is so much greater than that. New Year’s Eve is a day that has no religion, no color, and no political or historical value; it is a day that engages every nationality, every ethnicity, and every age. It is a day of closure, of celebration, and of good fortune to come.
For generations, New Year’s has dictated the creation of New Year’s Resolutions, a tradition that dates back to the early Bablyonians. I myself love resolutions and typically set about two dozen a year, but I also love the simplicity in believing in good fortune. Like the beautiful fortune cookies pictured below, I believe that, with the right mental attitude, we have the power to crack our own fortune cookies of happiness and health in 2011.
I have no doubt that 2011 is the year in which we can all crack into our own fortunes, but to really make the fortune a reality, we must first define what happiness and health mean to us. But also, before we can ever embrace the future, we must first understand our past; reflect on 2010 fully before you can be ready for 2011. Define these fortunes for yourself and then pursue them with all your might this coming year.