What is new about the new year?

AS the year 2023 ended successfully, there was a huge antic­ipation of what the ensuing year 2024 is going to offer. For both those who did well and those who were not satisfied with their own aspirations and achieve­ments, more could have been made to meet heart desires.

A New Year is the time or day at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar’s year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. Chris­tians in Ghana, for instance, welcome the year with celebra­tions from the evening of the last day of the previous year right into the midnight of the ensuing year and even beyond.

The cross-over, jump-over, step-over, skid-over and all sorts of over-church services are held to herald the new year. Resolutions are made by individuals and institutions as well as families.

People resolve not to do or to do particular things in life. Some set targets for them­selves. Some are not realistic, others not achievable but they are set anyway. Setting a goal is not enough. Achieving the set goal makes all the difference. Goal setting either by an indi­vidual or an institution must be benchmarked. That is the reason why it is crucial not to compare oneself to any other. It is rather better to compare oneself always to self and not others.

This is because you may appear better than the one you are comparing yourself to but in effect, you should have been downgrading your own better-set benchmark. In other words, the baseline may be better than the one you com­pared yourself to. One’s base­line or benchmark is therefore the best barometer in life.

Achieving a realistic goal in life regularly as some do every new year is a systematic and strategic means of achieving a lifetime goal. This calls for a plan and self-discipline to adhere to the plan. Discipline is one of the most important personality traits in everyone’s life. It refers to a set of rules and regulations which are to be followed while undergoing any task or activity. It is a way of being honest, hard-work­ing, motivated, and encour­aged while doing any task.

Mishaps befell some citizens, while many others had vic­tories and successes chalked, but by and large, all has been well for the good people of this country. As a nation, the National Domestic Debt Exchange Programme was an invitation for the voluntary exchange of approximate­ly GHS137 billion of the domestic notes and bonds of the Republic causing severe economic misfortunes and the flooding from the spillage of the Akosombo Dam causing over 26,000 people displaced will be indelible as the worst flooding in the region’s history. Amidst these and others, The Good Lord has made it hap­pen for Ghanaians to enjoy the year 2024.

Governments, institutions organisations and individuals have taken time to reflect on their performances during the just-ended year and made new plans and resolutions for the year 2024.

Frankly speaking, let us ask ourselves what is new about this new year as individuals and as people. At the midnight church services to herald the year, preachers gave hope to congregants of 2024 perhaps as the best of years.

The President of the land, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo in a chat with journalists has also expressed the opti­mism of a prosperous 2024.

Why do we have so much hope in all ensuing years even when we have not prepared adequately for it forgetting that our hard work or other­wise today determines the easy or difficult life we face in the future?

Church members from there joined others at the pubs and other social events to contin­ue the new year’s welcoming sessions.

Interestingly, at the start of ev­ery new year, everything under the sun continues to be what it is. No physical or tangible change is noticed anywhere. The sky continues to be blue. The roads leading to our hous­es were just where they were. Our homes were in the same places. Skin colours haven’t changed. In fact, everything is just as it is except for those we decide to change, for example, the calendars, which obviously are man-made and then room settings and decorations.

These and other reasons are why the question “What is new about the new year ?” is critically important. For many people, it can only be new if and only if we decide to live new lives in attitude and behaviour.

Newness comes from within the one looking up for the new. From the Bible- the source of a new year- we read, “And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old.”

Newness is the quality of being utterly different from the present or the original past., We can not continue to live in the old ways and expect anything new. Newness comes out of new ways of life.

In this new year, please “If we were not charitable or do not love, we need to learn to do that.

We must begin to be joyful, peaceful and patient if we are not. We need to begin to be kind and good to others, learn to develop a strong faith and can-do attitude, live a very modest lifestyle, and exercise much self-control if we had previously.

Newness comes from attitude and our hard work towards what we want to be new. The old style and attitude towards each other, towards work, to­wards the environment which did not help in any way to ensure progress and develop­ment must stop.

For us to experience a new year as we wish for ourselves, we must eschew apathy, tru­ancy and lateness to work and public events to make the new year really new.

The government must honour its promises to the populace, Members of parliament must stop exchanging blows, and the chiefs must stop indis­criminately and illegally selling the lands. The prophets must stop delivering false prophe­cies, and our drivers must stop careless and dangerous driving on our roads. The security personnel and the judiciary must ensure justice and securi­ty for all.

The journalists must be circumspect in reportage. In­deed, we must all stop pollut­ing the environment as well as having respect for each other. We must exhibit infectious enthusiasm for work and be consciously committed to the country.

As we begin working officially for the first time this year, we need new attitudes, approach­es and commitment towards all our endeavours as a people to really and truly experience the new year.

BY NANA SIFA (PHD)

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