If you have New Year's FOMO

1963 isn’t a new year anymore. The important thing is that they’re smiling. (State Library and Archives of Florida)

People are trying to make sense of the passage of time.

Reflecting not only on the past year, they’re attempting to process the past decade, hoping to glean some lessons and understand the trends that shaped the events they’ve just lived through.

If you’re feeling a sense of loss, a fear of missing out, a worry that there’s a party going on without you, let me reassure you: Nobody knows what the heck they’re doing.

Not the journalists, not the influencers, not the collection of people you allowed into your social media feed.

A decade, or even a year, is too big to comprehend all at once. And any attempt to sum things up will, inevitably, result from a limited perspective and leave out a whole lot.

The days are sort of arbitrary. Technically, a decade ends on the 10 — as in, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Nineteen, twenty. In other words, the actual first year of the 2010s was 2011, and the first year of the 2020s is 2021! An odometer rolling over, literally or metaphorically, is briefly satisfying, but ultimately means nothing — it carries only the meaning we ascribe to it.

We get to to ring in a new decade — or a new year, or a new quarter, month, week, or day — any way we want. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.

Reflect on the past — or don’t.

Make plans and set goals for the future — or don’t.

Go to a big party, or throw one — or don’t.

As always, we get to decide.

And I believe we have a responsibility to help the younger generation understand this, too. There is no “the way things are done” or “the way the world works.” There are only the collective decisions of human beings just like us, trying to figure out how to feel okay. There are no rules about how to spend a holiday — only traditions, which you can choose to honor or not.

Whatever you choose to do tonight or any other night, I hope you can be present and find things to appreciate. I hope you can do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day. That’s what I’m trying to do, too. I’ll let you know how it works out.