For the last 6 years, I’ve lived in Sydney where the New Year’s Eve fireworks are supposed to be the best in the world, each year getting bigger & better. I have yet to venture into the city for this major event. Am I getting old? Or do I just prefer quiet? (I like to think it’s the latter!) I don’t enjoy the crowds, the late night or the expectation that it’s some magic witching hour that will make everything different and somehow better.  I recognize it now as FOMO – the fear of missing out.

My favourite welcoming in of the New Year were those times with family and friends, an easy time of celebration around a barbecue (I’m in Australia, and we’re outdoors!). The evenings I’m talking about gave us the chance to get up and move, to break things up with a walk to the local community fireworks where we caught up with local friends all of us oohing & aahing together at the explosions of colour, the smell and the sounds that go with them.

I’ve also enjoyed those quieter versions on TV, which acknowledge that not everyone is out to party the year in. Whether by choice or by circumstance not everything is about a party. And there was the time where I just couldn’t make those last 10 minutes and was asleep minutes before midnight. For the last couple of years, I’ve been making the trip back to my hometown 50kms away to be at the first sunrise of the year. It’s still about being with friends & family, celebration and good wishes for success for the next 12 months.

It’s just another day, right? Well, yes and no. Symbolically it’s a time for setting things straight, a chance to start afresh. And this can be done in any number of ways, and any way that suits you. The celebration is yours and there is no FOMO. This year my view of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge meant celebration with fireworks and without crowds. A perfect combination for me! However, you brought the New Year in 2017 is now underway. A year of new beginnings has begun.