A Point of View By Paul V. Montesino

Celebrating the new year… every second.

By Paul V. Montesino, PhD, MBA, ICCP.

In 45 B.C., that was forty-five years before Jesus was born if you want to keep the record, Julius Caesar, a Roman dictator if you want to add juice to the story, ordered a calendar consisting of twelve months based on a solar year.

A solar year meant that we would keep track of the various points that planet earth reached as it traveled around the sun from beginning to end, the 365 days it took to complete the trip. This calendar employed a cycle of three years of 365 days, followed by a year of 366 days (leap year). Meaning that a year from every point on that journey, our browsing planet would find itself at the same point.

When first implemented, the “Julian Calendar” also moved the beginning of the year from March 1 to January 1. By the way, just in case you wondered, Mr. Caesar did not declare January 1 a paying holiday, others would do it later.

I am not getting into this well-known historical event for naught. It seems that humans have selected that January 1 particular spot in the heavens, and none other of the remaining 364 spots, for wishing each other well, giving expensive gifts to each other, and, on more occasions than not, getting drunk. If we want to be sticky, every day on the calendar can be a new year celebration, say, our birthdays. We prefer to place a frame around everything we do, and creating calendars is a good way to do it.

An example will help. When I started to write my memoirs, I did not begin my story the day in February when I was born. I chose instead the day in March when my new life in the United States began. This means that the new year day follows an old year day, the new one better than the old.

That should give you a wider choice for celebrating your new year. It probably means that most of us have different new year days when we face the light of the sun and decide that three hundred sixty-five days, or six, from now, we will be on the same spot on the firmament facing that sun. I think it is a great idea and a great feeling. It means that humanity will be celebrating, greeting each other, and hugging each other, but hopefully not getting drunk and driving, every day of the year. What a party!

Welcome to my New Year celebration whenever it happens!

And that’s my point of view today. So long.