2008? Already?

It's a new year. Is anything really different? Not really. The only thing that happens to be new is remembering to date things with an '08 instead of '07. It's an interesting phenomenon to see so many people trying to make monumental life changes as the last digit of the year number on your desktop calendar increments one in the positive direction.

I'm glad people are making that leap to change something, but why wait until January 1st? It seems so weird. I can understand that making the connection between a new year and a new you is easy to make, but I find it supremely hilarious that some people push off making a life change until the New Year holiday.

How many times have friends, associates, or family members told you they'd make a change... in the coming year. They'll give up smoking in 2008 or they'll actually work on that grad school application once this year is over or they'll actually go on a diet once '07 flips to '08. If you're dissatisfied with something in your life, change it right away. Don't live with it and change at some arbitrary date.

It's a little hypocritical to rail on new year's resolutions since I've made my fair share in the past, but most of the time they weren't huge, life changing resolutions. More often than not it was something little like trying to eat a few more vegetables every week or read at least one book a week or try to run 20 miles a week instead of 15. If something really needed to be changed, I don't see how I could continue on until a new year came around before I tried to change.

Will 2008 be any different than 2007? Sure it will. But I'm not going to force it to be different. I'm sure things will be quite interesting enough on their own.