Tuesday 1 January 2008

New Year

N.B. It is late as I write this, but I write it because if I wait till I have slept then I would have perhaps forgotten everything that I wanted to say, and I want to say it, because I believe it is important.

I am quite unaffected by the whole “New Year!!” feeling. It’s just another day, another minute, another second later than the last. A year is just a time period, made significant by the Romans’ invention of the calendar as they traced the seasons and the days according to the moon and the sun. So I really don’t see the big deal. I go to New Year’s Eve gatherings because it is a chance to socialise with people, have some fun, “let ya hair down a bit” but when it comes to getting all excited with the fireworks and the trekking it to London and the New Year’s resolutions, well I guess I’m a bit of a scrooge.

I guess up till September, my life was pretty constant. I went to church. I went to school. I hung out with friends. I helped at kids and youth clubs. Day in, day out, all year round, for the last – however many years, right? But this year, I’m here. I’m in a new place, with new people, with new prospects, and new hopes. And so I guess this year I’ve really began to realise the significance to what people see when a new year is dawning. They believe; they hope; that the New Year will bring new things for them, a chance of promotion, a chance of love, a change in lifestyle. They make resolutions, in the hope that THIS year, they will be able to keep it longer than the afternoon of New Years Day. They celebrate that, they live for that.

However, I am appalled and angry that £1.3 million was spent on the 11-MINUTE fireworks display in London for the New Year. £1.3 MILLION! Are you kidding me? If we as a country had that much money to spend on stupid fireworks, then why didn’t we sent it out to somewhere like the Philippines, or Africa, where children are dying every day because they don’t have clean water or enough food to eat? Where little children are living and working on rubbish dumps, searching for something they can sell, because they have no families to look after them. They have nowhere warm to come home to at night, no-one to give them a cuddle and tell them they love them. Can you blame me for being a scrooge when it comes to New Year with thoughts like that? Who makes decisions like that, to spend that amount of money on some FIREWORKS? So I guess I am still a bit of a scrooge when it comes to New Year.

In 2007, I spent an awful lot of money on things I didn’t need. But I’ve had enough. I’m going to change. In regards to presents on my birthday – I don’t want them anymore. I don’t need them anymore. Give me money, so that I can use it wisely, to aid the life of someone less fortunate than myself. So this is my mission in 2008: to not waste money on things that I don't need and to give the money that God gives me to whoever needs it the most. And I may fail, I may slip up, I may waste money on things I never really needed. But I’m sure as hell going to give it a go, and I shall press on trying, eager to do what I believe is right.

1 comment:

Hurri said...

£1.3 million eh. Good display though.