The New Year, as it has always been, sets people’s mind into trying to take a different life pattern that would lead to a more productive status.
People look forward to New Year as another chance for a fresh start and a new turn of event, where they could possibly re-align their preferences and focus on more worthy activities.
People see the New Year as an appropriate beginning to reflect and devote tremendous amount of self-sacrificing supplications, inundating hopes, and aggrandizing changes aimed for positive results.
Originally just a secular tradition common in the western hemisphere but currently being practiced worldwide, New Year’s resolutions are simply created for self-improvement. And to be able to accomplish everything that one decreed and to free him from any precipitous events, a New Year’s resolution comes in handy albeit oftentimes disregarded and hardly followed.
Among the needed “changes” topping the New Year’s resolution list are:
• To be more family oriented
The family is still the foremost primary social group in everybody’s list. Despite the advent of a variety of communication gadgets, interpersonal relationship with the immediate members and relatives becomes even more manifested when expressed with genuine emotion, utmost concern and lasting compassion. No amount of emotional contentment could match the warm kisses and embraces, the sweet spoken words, the tender touches, and the precious quality time spent together with parents, siblings, cousins, and relatives. High-tech gadgets, no matter how expensive and advanced, won’t suffice to express profoundly what one truly thinks and feels.
• To be physically fit
There is no substitute for a sound body with a sound mind. The old adages: “Health is wealth” and “You are what you eat” are always the guiding mantra of every health-conscious individual for obvious reasons. Such practice reduces the risk of some cancers, increases longevity, helps achieve and maintain weight loss, enhances mood, lowers blood pressure, and diabetes. A well-balanced diet coupled with physical exercise result to a healthy and better lifestyle.
• Trim the mid-waist
Cases of being overweight and obesity are the results of over indulgence to food and beverages and unhealthy eating habits, aside from being hereditary.
Enrolling in a weight-loss program won’t be enough to do the works without a keen determination and firm commitment on consistently losing extra poundage.
• Quit smoking
Renouncing a habit isn’t easy to do much more when it is already an addicting routine. The long period of smoking and addiction to tobacco puts one in a great dilemma. Coping with nicotine withdrawal syndrome takes some time since the acquisition didn’t take overnight. To give up smoking is to address the habit and the addiction. One has to manage and control his craving for tobacco and choose an option to be able to cope up with his plan to quit.
• Quit drinking
Like smoking, being alcoholic or addicted to alcoholic drinks is another bad habit that’s hard to break. A huge amount of motivation and drive is in order to be able to successfully accomplish the resolution. The road to recovery, especially when alcoholism needs professional help, takes an ordeal from rock bottom to full treatment.
• Control shopping and buying spree
This is everybody’s problem especially during sale and special offer seasons. A shopaholic’s addictiveness or compulsiveness to shopping is another psychological disorder not only common among women but among men, as well. It’s really hard to give up being an impulsive buyer especially when the object on sale is something one really wanted and the means is on hand.
• Be more organized
Due to an avalanche of daily activities and hectic schedules, a lot of things are often left abandoned for later organization but most of the times forgotten. The accumulation of unattended stuffs causes even more problems at the end. Reducing the clutters or totally eradicating them is one reasonable goal to effectively start the year with a bang.
• Be debt-free
Although it’s an impossible resolution to make, the harsh reality of life being free of debt is one inevitable fact. There are practical ways to reach such goal of financial independence or at least, lessen the burden of being indebted: a wisely written budget, using available cash instead of credit card when purchasing, living within one’s means, prioritize payments, cancel unimportant services, planning instead of procrastinating, refrain from impulsive purchases, and stop eating out every day, among others.
• Save…save…save…
There’s nothing more beneficial than putting away a portion of what you have, be it money, time, and even human energy. Being frugal or a wise spender saves a lot for future consumption.
• Try to learn something new
Learning a word daily and consistently using it when opportunity comes is rewarding and interesting as meeting or knowing a new person a day. Since being educated is fulfilling, life becomes even better when one acquires new knowledge and wisdom. As Francis Bacon has said: “Reading maketh a man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”
Celebrating the Chinese New Year
The longest and the most important celebration among the Chinese is their New Year which starts on Friday, January 31, 2014. Chinese months are reckoned by the lunar calendar and their New Year festivities traditionally start on the first day of the month until the fifteenth when the moon is at its brightest.
Legend has it that during the ancient times, Buddha asked all animals to meet him on Chinese New Year but only twelve came. Buddha named a year after each one and announced that people born on each animal’s year would be influenced by the animal’s distinct characteristics.
To show the dualism of existence or describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, the concept of Yin-Yang (Yin & Yang) is used. Yin is negative, dark, and feminine while Yang is positive, bright, and masculine. Their interaction is thought to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything within it.
The twelve animals honored which composed the Chinese zodiac (Shengxiao) which is a scheme and a systematic plan of future action that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, are: the Rat (Yang, water element), Ox (Yin, water element), tiger (Yang, wood element), Rabbit (Yin, wood element), Dragon (Yang, earth element), Snake (Yin, fire element), Horse (Yang, fire element), Goat (Yin, fire element), Monkey (Yang, metal element), Rooster (Yin, metal element), Dog (Yang, metal element), and Pig (Yin, water element).
While the Chinese calendar is represented by the twelve animals in a twelve-part cycle which correspond to years rather than months, the signs in the western zodiac are depicted by famous figures in the constellation.
During New Year, the Chinese wear red (hong se) and give away lucky money or ang pao in red envelopes. For the Chinese, red color symbolizes fire which for them drives away bad luck and ward off evil spirits. They lighted fireworks to drive away evil and misfortunes, a tradition inherited and popularly practiced by the Filipinos.
The Chinese New Year is also a time for family reunion where family members gather in each other’s house and shared meals at New Year’s eve, the same tradition now observed worldwide.
On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month people hang glowing lanterns in temples and houses and carry them to an evening parade under a moonlit night mostly highlighted with a dragon dance.
So, when a Chinese greets you Happy New Year “Kong Hei Fat Choy!” (in Cantonese) or “ Xin Nian Kuai Le!” (in Fokien) or “Gong Xi Fa Cai!” (in Mandarin), you can respond by saying “Hong Bao Na Lai!” (meaning: “red envelope, please!”).
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