Aul Lang Syne is and will always be, synonymous with the end of a year and the beginning of another year. It is as inherent to New Year’s Eve, as Pomp and Circumstance is to graduation. It is New Year’s Eve’s signature song. When written by Robert Burns in 1778 it was a Scottish language poem that literally translates to “Days Gone by.” It has become the traditional song to sing on New Year’s Eve, all around the world. It also has been deemed the most famous song, that no one knows, yet everyone has butchered on a tipsy New Year’s Eve.
I do think it’s fitting and proper to see the old year out and welcome the new one in, but yet if it’s really our desire to improve our lives as we live them out. Then it too becomes a time to not only say “Out with the old and in with the new” but to make the new, something better than it was. A new you, a new model and a chance to tie this change back to a significant date and time and there is no better day to do that-- then New Year’s Day
Since the time of the invention of the wheel mankind has always been looking for a better. wheel. That one that Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone rode around on, back in the day was just a starting point for the wheel. That’s the way our lives should be structured too. That 18-year-old person, turned out at the end of a high school education, should be just a starting point and it shouldn’t stop there. We need to strive to be all that is within our capability’s to be. Anything else is just a waste.
We do have something to celebrate this year. A vaccine that normally takes’ multiple years to test and develop was done in a fraction of that time. It’s a testament to what can be accomplished when all the chips are on the table. When Government and private enterprise put their collective heads together in an all-out effort to make something work. This pandemic as terrible as it has been, was the impetus to make this happen. We need to learn from this, what is truly possible when push comes to shove and shove comes to a can-do attitude. This was truly a team effort. Not just in this country but in many countries.
Now that we know we can do it. Next time, let’s make it a more proactive action. The biggest shame in all of this is the Laissez faire attitude we had in this country about the disease. Oh, this isn’t a shot at just the administration although they were complicit. That attitude has been around for a long time in this country and on a lot of subjects. Sometimes as my Mother would say, “People get too big for their britches.” We still have a way to go before we can claim victory. There is lot of harm that was done that cannot be undone and the word victory may be the wrong word. Maybe the word correction would be more appropriate. There is a lot of suffering to still be suffered but lets’ let that suffering always be a reminder of what can happen when you get-- “Too big for your britches.”
It is my hope, my prayer that as the ball falls this New Year’s Eve, we all see a new beginning. That we will always be that can-do society. There will always be other viruses and if we can keep the politics out of the solutions, they will be squashed before they ever get started. “May Auld Acquaintance Be forgotten in Days of Auld Lang Syne.” Happy New Year. Mike
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