To hype or not to hype?

New Year 2025

We have a day for celebrating mothers, a day for celebrating fathers, and nowadays, I think grandfathers, girl child day, couples day, singles day, etc. etc. It seems there’s a hype about all these special days, but their speciality has been lost. Our capitalist system has taken over all these days with gifts to give, what to buy for them, or how to make it special in the most extravagant way possible only to show off on social media. Do these days really mean something to anyone then? Are these days just a capitalist traps to get people to spend more or do they even for a few hours or momentarily make people reflect and appreciate these people in our lives?

I think that’s the same with New Year’s but maybe slightly different. New year just means a change of date in the Gregorian calendar. Not everyone in this world follows the same calendar. Not everyone follows the same time zones, so when it may be a new year in one part of the world, the other has long been celebrated and forgotten. Of course, the capitalist system has taken full advantage of this day and eve, selling fireworks and special passes to fancy places to get people to party like there’s no tomorrow.

As a mental health enthusiast and student, the most positive thing out of this for me is the energy that people put into it. The stock people take of their lives. The hope they start the new day with and the positivity that lurks even briefly in their brain. Makes a huge lot of difference. When everyone around us makes the day seem important, like something new is gonna happen, then we feel it. It is infectious. You see people doing a monthly account of their best moments on social media, people starting out their New Year resolutions and maybe paying for those gym memberships. What I see here, is reflections and hope.

For many years, I did not treat it specially at all. I never made a mood board, or list of resolutions. I don’t remember partying much except for using it as an excuse to travel nor did I enjoy the fireworks. In fact, hated them sometimes. Last year though, I read so much about making vision boards and thought let’s try - what’s the harm? I made sure I kept very small realistic (some big unrealistic

) goals. And guess what? Having it printed on my wall, subconsciously made me work towards it. The energy I put into different things now sort of weighed in whether it would help my goals or not. And it was not that I looked at it purposefully every day. Maybe once in two months. But a glance once every day or every few days definitely did have some effect on me.

Did I achieve them all? Not at all! But putting the energy into reflection and hope has really changed my perspective on New Year’s.

This year, I again hope to create a new mood board for 2025. Some of them will be taken from the last year, and some will be completely new.

The most fun part was the creation process with friends over a teams call. If you’d like to be part of it, please reach out.

So how do you view and celebrate the New Year? Do share your thoughts.