Today, millions upon millions of people are getting together with their friends to congratulate the Earth for one more successful revolution around the Sun.
The end of a year is a funny time. It's the time of year where everyone get's to reflect on what they have accomplished in the past 365 days. It's a time of peace, it's a time of happiness, of celebration, and of closure. It's when people will be dating their papers with the wrong year, and then they joke about it. So many thoughts cross everyone's minds of how well things did or didn't go for them, and how they hope things will or won't change for the year to come. Right now, all brains are in the mindset of "the new year."
But I think people should be considering "the new decade."
A decade is 10 years time. But, people often consider new decades to only begin on years that end with 0. But a decade is just 10 years time. We start new decades every year. Technically, not only do we start a new decade every year, but a new century every year. Every decade overlaps with several other decades, but they still exist. Why is the focus all about the new year? Why aren't we thinking about how our lives will change for the better in the next ten years? In fact, shouldn't we just be thinking about ways to change ourselves for the better for the rest of our lives?
I had a conversation with my father today about our family. Keep in mind that I'm 19 years old right now. My dad met my mom when he was 23. Five years later he was married. Two years later he had his first son. He was 30. When my dad was 30, he had a baby boy. Thirty. Remember that I am 19 at the time of this writing. Now, the future is unwritten, and I have no idea what is going to happen (though I like to think I have some semblance of a plan), but in a single decade, I might have a wife. I might have a son or daughter. I might have a son and a daughter. In 10 years time. That's a lot more groundbreaking than thinking of the work you will do in one year, or the things you will accomplish in one year.
People are trying to think of new long term goals to have completed by the end of this next year. My question is this: Are they really long term goals? It's scary to think of it this way, but it's just one year. What about things you want to have done ten years from now? Life goals that you want done? Sure, you can have things completed this year that you ideally want to have before ten years are over, but life is short, people. Blink and it will be all over.
If anything puts things into perspective, it's the next two paragraphs.
Two years ago, I was a senior in high school. I took some AP classes, had many close friends and ended my high school career feeling proud. A year ago, I spent my first year at Uconn in the school of business - I met lots of new people, and got to share a year in college with my brother before he transferred to Quinnipiac. This year I made a ton of close friends at school, and am still working for my father in the family business. Next year, I hope to be a resident assistant at school, and will be taking some core business classes.
Two decades ago, I didn't exist. Nothing on this planet had changed in any sort of way from something that I did. My hands had touched nothing. One decade ago, I was still learning that sharing is caring, I was still blowing my nose in my shirt because I didn't care, and I was actually concerned that I wasn't going to be tall when I was older (but that all worked out in the end). This decade, these 10 years that are ahead of me, will yield so many unknown results that it completely excites me. I'm anxious to experience anything that this next one year has to throw at me, but i'm also waiting to see what the next years have in store.
"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" is a pretty popular interview question. I hate hearing it as much as the next person, because I'm pretty sure nobody can say for sure (at least, not with complete confidence) where they will be. But we should try to have an idea. Think in terms of decades, not years. Did you fulfill all of your new decade's resolutions this decade? Have you established your future new decade's resolutions for when 2020 comes around?
I have a few. One of them I'll share (and I hope was a part of your resolution list already) is this: Find happiness, and once you find it, never ever lose it.
Happy New Decade, everyone!
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