New-ness

It's 2011.
Another New Year.
Another chance to start anew.

We say our goodbyes to the old year like an friend - or enemy - departing on a train headed west.

We breathe. We tell ourselves that now is the time for a fresh start. Time to give up bad habits. To cultivate good ones. To make friends. To embrace family. To be more productive, more healthy, more loving and giving. To be the better/stronger/faster 'us' we've always wanted to be. The calendar turns over, and here is one more opportunity to reinvent ourselves.

But aren't those opportunities always with us?

Every time we wake up, aren't we starting anew in some sense? Every time we leave the house, step forward, begin something, every time we pause and reconsider, aren't we reinventing some portion of ourselves, our lives, our world views?

That is, if we want to.

If we want to, we can make a habit of examining the old, keeping the valuable, and shedding the outmoded like dry skin. Over and over again, we can look at each day and step and meeting on the road as an opportunity for new-ness. Almost as if we had a sun to rise every 24 hours, awakening us with a fresh new morning, we too can rise with the expectation that at some time during this day there will be a chance to experience something new.

Tough prospect, this constant review and reinvention, huh? Who has the time and energy - or inclination - for that?

But yesterday, you said, you said, you said: "It's a New Year for a New Me!"

So why is January 2nd less new-worthy than January 1st?