The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

FEATURE: Meet the new year, same as the old year

Oh January!  The first month of the year, immortalised in a 1970s song.   ‘January don’t be cold’, the singer implored.  Well this year January wasn’t listening.  We’ve witnessed the biggest cold snap since…well I was going to write, “since records began” but (a) I don’t know that for a fact and (b) I don’t know when records began.

MATTHEW OKOT

Nevertheless January is the month of good intentions.  We tell ourselves that we’ll be good this year.  We’ll go to the gym.  We’ll eat healthier.  We won’t get drunk so often (although we’re usually drunk on New Year’s Eve when we make this promise, therefore it doesn’t count).  Yet, deep down, we know it’ll be a miracle if our resolutions last beyond the first week of the year.

Why do we do it?  Everybody loves the idea that they can change something about themselves.  That’s what resolutions are all about.  Yet the problem is that while the clock may be reset on 31 December, life isn’t.  All the baggage from one year is carried over to the next.  That thesis, that project, that assignment we were working on before Christmas, we still have to work on it after Christmas.  It is difficult for us to be new when there’s so much of the old lying around.

It recalls a newspaper cartoon I read in which the punch line was, “it’s just the same year and they’ve added a one”.  Adhering to this cynical philosophy, I try to avoid making New Year’s resolutions.  I just remember the old plea – “Give me temperance and virtue, but not yet!”

Happy New Year

Tags: Gown, Matthew Okot, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, The Gown

This entry was posted on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 2:26 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.