2020 has a nice even sound to it, doesn’t it? Just like 20/20 vision: something that sounds perfect and complete.
2020.
Well, every new year is the same in some way, because it is a new year.
It is a completely unwritten year.
And it’s no accident that this is the time for resolutions for what this year will be about.
Now, of course, it is just a number.
So nothing will magically change between December 31st, 2019 and January 1st, 2020.
It’s just another new day, and we just happen on the calendar to give it a new number.
So there’s a limit to what it means, of course.
It doesn’t completely remake everything.
And the things that we’re doing on December 31st: there’s nothing that will automatically change them on January 1st.
But I believe that in some way, it is more than just a number.
It can be more than just a number, because of what the number means.
The number 2019 is now full of meanings.
It’s full of everything that we filled 2019 with.
Whenever you just hear that word, “2019”, or see that written, and you can call to mind what kind of year you’ve had, everything that’s happened, everything you did, what this year was like.
You just see that number 2019, and it calls those things to mind.
When you see the number 2020, well, now it’s a completely fresh year.
It could be anything.
So that’s the power of the new year: the idea of this blank page where you can really start fresh.
And I think whatever can help to give that feeling is good.
I mean, we could have that every day.
In some way, ideally, every day should be like a January 1st, because every day is that completely fresh start for the rest of your life.
Like they say, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Yet another one of those clichés, but an absolutely valid one.
If we could really start each day as being a beginning, that would be very powerful.
And that is what it is, because really every day, every day that starts, it may have a number like “January 2nd” or some number that suggests that it’s not first, but every day that starts is completely unwritten and completely open to be anything.
And it’s only at the end of that day that we can judge, maybe, what it was about, and maybe not even until later can we really understand the significance of that day.
But when you have January 1st of a new year, now is the day where we automatically get that, get that written into the date itself that yes, this is a start.
This is a beginning of something new.
So January 1st, 2020: when you look at that number, you see that number 2020 and say wow, it’s now 2020.
As much as it’s just a number, that is now a fresh number that can now be associated with new things.
You can leave aside everything that’s associated with 2019 and bring on a whole new set of connections with that number, with that new year and what it means to you.
And with 2020, not only is it extra fun because we have the doubling 2020 – and that’s not gonna happen again until 2121, so let’s enjoy it while it’s here – and we also get, unofficially, the beginning of a new decade.
Now, I know, of course, technically the 20s as a decade do not officially start until 2021, because 2020 is part of the end of the second decade, the end of the teens.
But in terms of how the numbers we look at, in terms of that third digit of the year, 20: we’ve been looking at 201 for the last 10 years.
Now we’re looking at 202.
We’re looking at the 20s.
Wow.
Can you believe it? We’re now in the 20s, and this is now a whole new decade.
So this is, as much as, again, I can keep saying, we can keep reminding ourselves, it is just a number, and it doesn’t automatically make anything happen, but it is an opportunity to start this new year, this new decade, with a fresh new approach, and ask yourself: what do I want this decade to be about? And starting with the year: what do I want this year to be about? Which will then set things going for the 2020s, this decade that we’re now stepping into.
Because it’s so young right now, it’s at its very beginning, we have that little bit of extra power to be able to choose the direction that we want.
So, where do you want to go with this year?