Yet Another Fresh Start

A New Year is a little bit like a first snowfall. We're all very concerned about the first marks we make and then we just go about our business. Too bad we can't bottle that sense of unlimited optimism we feel on this, the first day of the year, and break it out when things get serious and the going becomes harder, like tomorrow and all the days that will follow it.

Be of good cheer (unless you were too much of that last night). We made it to 2012, Mayan misgivings or not (and what if something happened to the person who worked on that calendar and all the other Mayans said, "2012? That's so far off,  who cares? Let's work on something else!") and we're worrying for nothing. That would be something. The paths are many, the destination is shared: while some of us arrived in more comfort, health or wealth than others, here we are.

With all due respect to the more stridently jingoistic among us, the farther out in space you go, the more alike we look. Perhaps that might be a visual cue that here on the ant farm with beepers we can leave a little more for somebody else-perhaps take a slightly smaller piece of the pie as the plates get passed around and remember that lesson on the importance of sharing we learned back in kindergarten.

Enjoy today's fresh start-it's like baseball's Opening Day. None of us have lost a step or have an ache or an alibi. We won't all make it to the World Series but we don't know that yet for sure. Today is as close to heaven on earth as we get, and for some of us as close as we'll ever get. Let's get started.
-bill kenny