The Real New Year

In my mind, New Year's Eve always seemed to revolve around metallic sparkles, fancy clothes, champagne toasts and sentimental reminisces based on an artificial sense of measured time that some monks back in the day decided would be the best way to sort-of-kind-of keep us all organized.

But, when my Buddhist practice with the Soka Gakkai International began to get serious a few years ago, my relationship to the new year changed: we SGIers like to cheer and whoop for just about any occasion we can, especially when it has to do with "starting from this moment on" and refreshing our lives for the next phase (or year, as we call it). Any yearly landmark in SGI history, Nichiren Buddhist history, or the campaigns we set up every five minutes (study campaign month, men's division month, women's division month, youth festival, contribution campaign, etc), is cause to celebrate, strengthen some element of our practice, and generally refresh our individual and collective understanding of what that element means in our lives and in our movement.

Once I had come to appreciate and embody that spirit of things, I realized that my real "New Year's Eve" is the day when my life reaches another phase each year, independent of our society's historical time countdown. My birthday is the day when I celebrate and appreciate this lifetime of mine - the most precious thing we are ever endowed with - and pay homage to my parents (my personal history), my past year of life, and my future.

I may party like it's year 23 when the time is right, but the day itself is my day to simultaneously take a deep breath, give myself some TLC, accomplish something pleasant I've been subconsciously denying myself (like taking a dance class or visiting a museum) and resolutely push myself to set the rhythm for the next 365 days of my vibrant, treasure-filled life...even when the treasure doesn't always seem so obvious! And of course, a little face time with friends and family never hurt a birthday girl!

But most importantly, this is my life we're talking about! And I choose to use my date of birth each year (based on an invented calendar though it may be) to marvel at the old (and how far I've come!), relish the present, and resolve to create the most fabulous future as I ring in the new.

And so I say, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thank you for sharing it with me!