It's good for the first 10 minutes. Then it's all downhill from there...

Happy New Year to you, my devoted readers. As I was informed by the gents over at the daily webcomic "Cyanide and Happiness", now that 2009 has ended, there can be no more glasses in which the centers are circles until 3000.

That being said, it's a new year. A new shot for all of us to try to keep our new years resolutions, a chance for something new to conspire, and a chance to forget all the things we missed out on in the previous year. But that's not all folks. It's not just a new year. It's a new decade. A reset on that 10 year clock. Talk about new beginnings.

But who's to say this new year is going to be that different from any other year? Who's to say that it will be better? Honestly, it seems that every year we have this confounding optimism that each year will be better than the last. Is this year "due to be a good year"? Is it because the previous year sucked? Why is it that every year at January 1, 12:01 am we feel that the world has pushed reset and all bets are off? It's simple. We wish to feel that things are going to be better now that something has changed.

Yet nothing has really changed. The world keeps spinning as fast as it always did (to you physicists, let's not argue the semantics of the earth spinning). The sun still rises, grass is still green, etc. The only thing that has changed is the numerical system we associate with the date. That's all. Perhaps some new opportunities will come about, however, who's to say they wouldn't without the change in the year?

When the confetti falls, the champagne bottles are returned for their respective deposits, and the hangover passes, we realize something. The reality of the situation is that nothing has changed. It's just another holiday is a string of things. Another year ends, closing out the first decade of a new millennium, and the cosmos did not open to rain malted milk balls down upon us.

Happy New Year. And remember, life is what you make it. Make it good. Don't let others take control for you.

-Matt