The year 2023 is behind us, in the great composting bin of time, it will serve as fertilizer for the years that follow it. There is no shortage of fertilizer to make the present grow.
The world did not hesitate to let off steam about the year 2023, cheerfully, during the last days of the latter. If humans are entitled to a chorus of praise when they disappear, the years receive a barrage of nonsense when they come to an end. Good riddance, 2023! It’s about time you finished! We won’t regret you! To hell with 2023!
Should have read the publications of December 31, on social networks. The entire community agreed that 2023 was responsible for all global and personal plagues. Wars, natural disasters, inflation, violence, crimes, the housing crisis, bankruptcies, bad harvests, illnesses, injuries to Canadian players, divorces, separations, family disputes, the tax, the flu, the third link, the one-way street on the Plateau, the death of the cat, all of that was 2023’s fault.
And in the same spirit, we placed all our hopes in 2024. May the new year bring us love, peace, happiness, sweetness, success, money and health! Just that. May 2024 stop global warming, the war in Ukraine, conflicts in the Middle East and poverty across the planet.
Do you know what? 2024 will bring us nothing at all. Not even an apple turnover. 2024 will not stop anything at all. Not even a scooter.
Because 2024 doesn’t exist. No more than 2023. Or 1973. Or the year 30. These are marks created by humans to locate themselves in the great space-time continuum.
The seconds, the hours, the weeks, the months, the years, we invented everything. Some scientific theories even go so far as to deny the very existence of time. But we won’t go that far, on this early Sunday morning. It would take a long time to understand, and what’s more, if time doesn’t exist, we might run out of it. Let’s just say, without a doubt, that 2023 has done nothing wrong and 2024 will do nothing right. And that despite all our happy new year wishes exchanged over the past few weeks, in three hundred and fifty-some days, we will blame 2024 for all the ills in heaven and especially on Earth.
Because nothing will be resolved, neither wars, nor diseases, nor global warming, nor the reconstruction of Canada, nor our big and small problems. The person responsible for all our misfortunes is not the year, whatever it may be, it is ourselves. Us, sometimes as entities, sometimes as individuals.
At the end of December, it’s easier to blame the entire pile of poop on the year that is ending and place all our hopes in the year that begins. We thus get rid of the guilt of having done poorly and we remove the pressure to do better. Bad 2023! We’re counting on you, 2024!
No one wants to be held accountable. Yet everyone is to varying degrees. We all have a responsibility in the face of the bad sides of 2023. And we will all have a responsibility in the face of the bad sides of 2024. We are guilty ! Let’s be positive, we also have a responsibility towards all the good sides, all the same.
Let’s also be fair. Let us admit, in leaving, that we are not guilty of what is happiest in this world, nor of what is saddest. Life and death, we are stuck with that. But all other problems are our fault. We are the ones who waste our lives, sometimes to the point of killing ourselves.
This is why the end and the beginning of a new year, which are, basically, the end and the beginning of absolutely nothing other than a convention which helps us to take stock of our actions, should serve to examine our conscience about our contribution to the lives of our loved ones, those far away and ourselves.
If everyone, from the PM to the ordinary citizen, asked themselves two questions. First question: what is my share of responsibility for everything that goes wrong in the world and in my world? Second question: what can I do to make things better?
Eating better, quitting smoking, exercising, these are all good resolutions to improve your life. But it seems that no one asks what they can do to improve the lot of others. And afterwards, we are surprised that things go badly for others. We should realize that the others are the rest of us.
It is certain that in a Facebook, Instagram, X or Y, Z status, it is easier to hold 2023 responsible and believe in 2024, rather than to hold ourselves responsible for 2023 and believe in ourselves for 2024.
What if social networks were the key to a better world. Just a little bit. So that 2024 will be a better year than 2023 was. We have all been isolated in our reality for thousands of years. Let us speak to each other through intermediaries. Now there are billions of us who can act with each other. Currently, we use it to insult each other, to insult each other, to diminish ourselves. If we used it to help each other, encourage each other, grow each other.
I know, it’s a beautiful utopia. But now, for once, we have a place to share this utopia. Should at least try. Who will be the brave ones to try first? The more there are, the happier we will be. And 2024 will become a good year.