My Love/Hate Relationship With New Year's

Oh New Year's. Every year you rear your ugly head and we have to do this "I love you/I hate you" dance round and round.

What I love about New Year's is that it is the most existential holiday we have. It's the only holiday that provokes introspection. What were the defining moments of my past? How do I move forward to a bright future? We ask all the important questions on New Year's. If there's any time of year that's best for evolution on a large scale, it's New Year's.

Now here's my beef. First of all, let's be real, those questions are scary. Most of us keep our inner search pretty shallow and leave it at "Learn to knit, Lose 20 pounds." I think the questions that are invoked are so weighty that we freeze. And of course, if you're truly trying to improve yourself, you're doing that year round, right? So in one way I feel like new year's is a missed opportunity to do some serious soul searching.

My other issue is that the way we celebrate New Year's is just silly. If I was going to organize a New Year's extravaganza, there wouldn't be slinky black dresses, champagne, and party hats. My New Year's fest would be at a retreat center with notebooks for writing down revelations and meditation sessions for authentic and powerful inner discoveries. No one would ride home slumped over in the back of a cab.

I know what you're thinking. That kind of party will catch on like wildfire, right? Yeah, I know! We could call it "A Nerdy New Year's Eve." Maybe I'll put one together in 2020 . . .