COUNTDOWN!....To the New Year.

It’s the last day of the year of 2011. What exactly comes to your mind as you think about this very day? I know for certain that some people are planning their outfits for the ‘biggest party” of the year tonight, some are busy constructing the most annoying broadcasts to distribute on bbm, the religious fanatics are probably going to stay up all night praying to God that they make it towards the new year, while to others, it’s pretty much just a regular day.

This blog has been in existence since God-knows-when and I’m just getting to write a feature on it. Don’t get me wrong, I love to write, it’s been my favorite thing since I was about 10 or so. While my sisters would yearn for Kenan and Kel on Nickelodeon or make ‘houses’ out of the sofa cushions, I’d be searching for a book with partly empty pages because I just had to write. Fast forward to this very day, I’m pretty much the same person except that I kind of lost my zeal to write thanks to the numerous times my computers had ‘given up the ghost’ on me in the middle of writing a fantastic novel (thank you fate!). But today, I just woke up feeling like my 10 year old self again, well, only a bit more technologically advanced.

What’s so different about today some might ask, well looking back over the year it was no 2008 (the most amazing year ever) but a lot of stuff went down. I didn’t like myself that much in the beginning of the year and this was entirely due to the fact that I kept on making the same mistakes all over again like I was overdosed on stupid. Seriously, who was that girl? I cringe whenever I think of myself back then. Then towards the end of the year, I renewed my faith in God and it’s been uphill from there. 

The whole point of this was not to convert people to my religion but all I’m trying to say is that it gave me and entirely different point of view about today being the last day of the year.  I woke up this morning not only reminiscing the fact that yesterday was one of the most amazing days EVER but thinking about who I was going to be in the New Year. I’m certainly not one to make a new year resolution list because to some extent I think it’s kind of dumb. The reason I’m saying this is not to insult your intelligence or whatever but think about this deeply if you feel that writing stuff down on piece of paper about things you want to change in your life then I doubt if you actually would change. A resolution is something you make in your hearts and something that’s done without even having to announce to the entire world that you’ve changed something about yourself, you do it because you genuinely believe that changing that certain aspect of your life would bring you a step closer to who you truly want to be.

Another thing asides resolutions are the clichéd parties that happen at this time every year. Before you dress up as that sexy playboy bunny to the biggest party at marquee, think about it carefully am I dressed up as a slut because all I care about is catching a husband before the year runs out or I’m there because I just want to have a pretty amazing night. For all the champagne that’s going to be popped and the new dance moves that are going to be busted, think about this-“what exactly am I celebrating?” if you have no answer to that, then I think it’s high time you made a self-evaluation.

 I’m not saying that I’m any better than people who go to bars and drink until they can’t feel their legs anymore but for whatever thing you do today, be it dancing, cooking, blogging or whatever, do it because there’s a reasonable motive behind it. Don’t let yourself be blown by the wind. Take a stand and do something that you’ve always wanted to instead of waiting for the New Year because the truth is that not everyone will live to see the New Year. I captured a line from Alicia Keys’ “like you’ll never see me again” and it’s been stuck in my head all week. It says “I don’t want to forget the present is a gift”. Yes, don’t ever forget the present is the best gift that’s given to us by God. A great pun indeed! It reminds us that we need to do all the things we can while we still have it, modify the errors we made before it’s too late; forgive that neighbor who hurt you one too many times, dissolve the abhorrence between you and your parents, go get that girl you’ve always longed for or even drive down all the way to festac to apologize to that negro whom you stole his girlfriend. What if we don’t see the New Year? Would you die thinking you’ve lived your life exactly the way you would have wanted? Instead of trying to create resolutions you might not keep, try to envision the fact that the present is all you have. 

Think of each day as the 31^st of December because in every sense it is pretty much a regular day except that most people are anxious about whether they would make it into the New Year. If you tend to view each day as the last day of the year, your life and the world as a whole would be even greater than we can ever imagine. So I urge everyone that as you read this, make a difference in your life today because as you do, you just might inspire the person who’s right next to you to do the same. 

My greatest inspiration today was to write this article because I’ve always been too scared to let anyone read whatever I write, but I don’t want to live thinking that I hid something that might have touched the heart of someone who might have read it. So with this, I wish you all a happy New Year in advance and have an awesome 2012. Cheers! 

xoxo

Misan