Just Another Day

It is seductive to look at New Year's Eve as a time to reflect upon the events of the past year and take stock. I've always felt that if you only check your rearview mirror once a year, you're likely to get run over by traffic. Now that I've reached middle age (sure, I fully expect to live to see 90) I wake up every morning, take inventory of the parts that still work, and plan how I'll use them for the day. I've heard people say that tonight is amateur night in the bars, but it seems that it's also amateur night for those who get misty looking at the events of the past year, and make empty resolutions about the year to come. The fact that January 1st begins a new year is as arbitrary as the order of the alphabet, the fact that one person survives a disaster while thousands of others perish, or the amount of money that our government commits to humanitarian aid (roughly equivalent to offering to replace one of the life preservers on the Titanic). Of course, as the ball drops tonight I'll hug my children, kiss my wife, and be happy that I have another day to do the best that I can; but I try to do that every day.