Starting off the New Year on the wrong foot

The beginning is always important, precious and sacred because it usually determines how things will evolve and end. Therefore the New Year celebration brings along beliefs of superstitions as well as moments of excitement and joy. Many people fear the rest of the year will turn bad if inauspicious things happen to them on the 1st of January - imagine your plate somehow slips from your hands and breaks on the floor.

However for many, as soon as midnight strikes, they light up their fireworks and create so much pollution around their house and others that it becomes difficult to breathe. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the smoke from all the fireworks blurs out visibility to the extent you cannot see buildings and houses around and it takes around half an hour for it to clear. Now think about what we’re doing to our atmosphere! Talk to anyone and they’ll all advocate we need to save our planet, yet it has become tradition now to do fireworks for all occasions (birthdays, religious festivals etc). Ironically, people would go beyond their means to buy fireworks either to please their children, to be able to celebrate with everyone else and ward off evil/bad omens and not look like the odd one out. I know New Year celebration is a commercial event but how foolish is it to pay to pollute the air you’re breathing and be part of those who’ve created climate change and made the lives of your children/grand children worse?

And then there are those who start their New Year with a hangover. Forget about the money spent to get wasted, which could have been put to better use, but I’d rather wake up after a good night sleep and embrace the coming year with full life, energised and ready for the challenges awaiting me.

What about you?