Happy New Year

Welcome to 2025. Another year has dawned, bringing with it the promise of new beginnings and fresh opportunities. We experience many moments of joy and sorrow in any given year. Like every other year, 2024 was filled with moments of joy and sorrow, highs and lows, and experiences that shaped us in countless ways. For some, milestones like graduation, marriage, childbirth, or the loss of a loved one defined the year. For others, it was a quieter journey marked by personal victories and challenges.

As we step into 2025, many of us may be looking for New Year’s resolutions—some routine, some ambitious. Whether your goals involve fitness, career growth, or mastering a new skill, I have one suggestion to add to your list: be kind—to yourself and to others. In a world that often feels divided and polarized, kindness is not just an act of goodwill; it’s a necessity. The pervasive negativity and divisiveness in our public discourse, fueled by selfish leaders and sensationalism, have left many searching for enemies in others to blame for all their problems. This mindset is neither healthy nor sustainable. Kindness, on the other hand, has the power to heal people and societies. It helps build strong and reliable connections with those around us. It fosters compassion and inclusiveness, qualities that can transform not only our personal relationships but also the broader society.

Imagine a world where we truly listened to one another, where we sought understanding instead of conflict. What if, instead of focusing on our differences, we celebrated our commonalities? What if, instead of focusing on our disagreements, we move forward on points where we agree? The choice is ours: we can dwell on what divides us, or we can embrace what unites us. Like all good deeds, kindness also begins at home—with yourself and with our families. Too often, we are our own harshest critics. We set impossible standards and berate ourselves for falling short. This year, resolve to offer yourself the same grace you would extend to a dear friend. When you are kind to yourself, you build a foundation for greater resilience and empathy. You become better equipped to show up for others with patience and understanding.

When kindness becomes a guiding principle, its ripple effects can be profound. It can restore civility to public discourse that has grown increasingly toxic. It can mend relationships and bridge divides. And it can remind us that we are stronger together than apart. Kindness doesn't stop us from disagreeing with others or standing up for ourselves, it just provides a different way of doing these things. Kindness is not just a personal virtue; it’s a societal imperative. A nation that moves forward with compassion and inclusiveness is one that thrives.

This year, let’s make kindness our collective resolution. Let’s commit to being more patient, more understanding, and more gracious—with ourselves and with others. Let’s choose connection over division, understanding over blaming, and love over hate. As 2025 unfolds, may we remember that the power to create a better world lies in the choices we make every day. Together, let’s build a future where kindness and compassion are the norm, not the exception.

Happy New Year! Here’s to a year filled with love, understanding, and meaningful connections!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my readers and well-wishers! We all added another year of valuable experiences to our lives. Our experiences and learnings from those experiences make us who we are and how we behave with others. Every new year brings a lot of hope and enthusiasm to us, it gives us an opportunity to restart if we are feeling stuck for some reason. Not everyone needs the occasion of a new year to restart, but for anyone who is looking for such an opportunity, a new year is a good occasion to consider such a restart. Celebrations and occasions to have some social time could help us with our mental hygiene. So, take this opportunity to pause and ponder. Readjust and restart if necessary. Most important, take care of yourself and spread compassion and love.

Once again, happy New Year.

Happy New Year

2022 has just passed. The last few years have been interesting as the world is dealing with the COVID pandemic and a war that has affected everyone's life to some extent. Many of us have faced some personal challenges and losses, but at the same time, there were some personal achievements and success stories. That's the nature of life, time moves on, joy and sorrow visit us simultaneously or one by one, but nothing stays permanent. Wishing each other a happy new year signifies our good intentions towards each other, we wish each other happiness for the entire year, and we express this wish with a smile even to strangers. I hope we also behave in accordance with this greeting. We try to bring as much happiness into each other's lives as we can. It's not that difficult. If we sincerely try to be kind, become better listeners, show empathy and compassion, and be supportive, the world will become a much better place than what it is. Let's mean what we say and try to make this year a happy new year. Wishing all my readers a happy new year.

Happy new year

2020 was not an ordinary year. The entire world faced the unprecedented challenge of dealing with a pandemic that we wrongly assumed would never hit us again. We spent most of 2020 dealing with a variety of challenges thrown at us by the Covid-19 pandemic. There are stories of immense loss and personal tragedies, at the same time there are also stories of immense courage, determination, and resilience from all over the world. We got confused, scared, and even misled by people who were supposed to guide us, we became anxious about this added uncertainty in our lives, some of us lost some near and dear ones, and some of us faced personal and professional setbacks. However, after the initial chaos, we adjusted, adapted, and tried our best to deal with whatever challenges came our way, the response was not perfect, but there was a response and there was always hope. Humanity has survived many such challenges and will survive many more if they come our way.

Soon, we will get over this pandemic and life will come back to its new normal. I am calling it a new normal because life not necessarily going to be the same as it was before. Things are bound to change. Along with throwing many surprises, this pandemic has taught us many things, both, in a personal and professional capacity. Many companies and other institutions realized that working remotely is not a bad option to provide to employees who want it, we do have technological capabilities to support online traffic for a large workforce. We also realized that we can increase the frequency of our interpersonal interactions by supplementing them with technological platforms that are being invented almost every day. Of course, some interactions are always better if they can be done in person, but many times, some constraints stop us from being physically present, during those times, we can make use of technology and still be a part of these special moments. We also learned the importance of supporting each other, listening to each other, and the importance of being in touch. There are many such lessons we learned as a society, family, and also as an individual. These lessons are going to stay with us. Years like 2020, teach us a lot and transform us internally as well as externally. We will see some of these changes which we were forced to adapt as becoming a new norm.

Personally, for me, 2020 was not bad at all. I finished law school and passed two bar exams, I am working at a firm where I wanted to work. I also managed to remain physically active in the way I wanted. I adapted to the changes in circumstances and devised ways to be physically active while working from home. My interactions with my family increased a lot as we all had to spend so much time together, we learned quite a few things about each other which we could not have done without these changed circumstances.

We already entered the new year, 2021. No doubt, we are starting this year with a lot of hope and enthusiasm. We are going to win our battle with this pandemic and move on. We all are looking forward to getting rid of many restrictions due to this pandemic, especially related to international travel. Let's keep doing all the good things that we learned during these unprecedented times, let's continue to focus on our health and overall well-being. Let's be happy and try to spread happiness. Let's begin this year with a resolve that no matter what challenges come our way we will deal with them to the best of our capabilities. Wishing you all a happy new year.

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Happy New Year

2014 is over and now we are already in 2015. As we need occasions to celebrate and get together. We have created the new year as another festival to celebrate and enjoy. The good part of this festival is that it is not a religious one, it is not associated with any particular faith or belief so everyone can participate in it with equal enthusiasm. This is the reason New Year is celebrated all over the world, across all communities, and by people of all ages.

People who celebrate life every day or don't wait for any particular day or occasion to have fun don't need any special day to celebrate anything, their whole life is a big celebration and every day is like a big festival for them. But most of us can't live like that because of so many reasons, for many living like this is practically not possible. New Year, birthdays, or anniversaries are just like any other day in life but we try to make them special, we celebrate them to add more flavor to our daily lives. We need something to look forward to and these occasions or many other festivals give us this opportunity. Actually, when the year changes mostly nothing changes except the calendar. This is an opportunity to pause in our busy lives and look back at what we did in the last year and what we should plan for the next year to make it better. That is why people try to make some new year resolutions, they may or may not try to complete them but they at least make them.

I personally don't celebrate these occasions if I am alone, I am not a party person. I prefer solitude over chaos (crowded gatherings), I really feel out of place at big functions or parties. But if I have to attend them then I prefer to spend time with friends and family. I prefer small gatherings where we can chitchat and eat tasty food. I feel happy to see cheerful people who are in a celebration mood and are looking forward to the coming days with positive enthusiasm. These occasions are also about taking a break from our regular routine and rejoice. We need some break from our regular routine so that we can recharge our batteries. 

Celebrate these occasions if you like, have fun, party hard, and then work hard. At the same time, please also be considerate of people who don't like to be part of these types of functions. Surround yourself with people you are comfortable with, and interacting with talented people improves your own qualities. Let us make a resolution to make this coming year more peaceful than last year, let's try to be more tolerant and compassionate towards each other. Let's celebrate life, let's pay tribute to all who left, and remember their sacrifice and contributions. I wish everyone a very prosperous, healthy, and happy new year.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]