Living: the ultimate team sport

How to make the best of a New Year, every day

Posted on January 1, 2016 Updated on December 31, 2015

My last post of 2015 talked about making resolutions you can actually fulfill.

This first post of 2016 proposes that every day be treated as one does a New Year.

I’ll borrow sentiments from Dr. Bernie S. Siegel again, providing you with wisdom that might help you get a good start on 2016, and every day you’ve been given. Direct quotes will appear indented in this post.

How can you have a new year? You are the same person, and the world doesn’t start again with a clean slate. Your troubles don’t disappear. People don’t forgive you for what you did the year before…

Your life is anything but new when you awaken on the first day of the year. It is simply a way of measuring the passage of time. Why make such a fuss over it?

We like new starts, don’t we? There’s something refreshing about having the opportunity to start all over again. Not unlike second chances, I treat the commencement of a new year as an opportunity to do better. Unless you’re perfect, you too like the idea of a fresh start.

The truth lies in our desire to be reborn, to start again, to make resolutions and changes we can live up to. Then why wait for a certain date to start a new year? Why can’t tomorrow be New Year’s Day?

Maybe it is!

Wow, instead of waiting 365 days to do better, I can do better in the next minute. I don’t even have to wait until tomorrow. Right now, I can do better. I can think of and speak more kindly towards others and myself. I can promote a healthier lifestyle and make plans to construct a better me and a better world. Why wait?

I see it every day in my role as a physician; people learn they have a limited time to live, and they start their New Year behavior. They move, change jobs, spend more time with those they love, stop worrying about what everyone else thinks of them, and start to celebrate their life.

Whoa, why wait until it’s too late? Quite literally, when you’ve been given a death sentence, it is too late. I’m not going to rely on receiving such a prognosis to get things right, I’m going to make every effort to do better for myself and others, right now.

I have the chance to live my best life now, and so do you.

When every evening is New Year’s Eve and every day you awaken to is New Year’s Day, you are living life as it was intended.

Wow, given the alternative, I’ll get right on it!