New Year’s Messages

Happy New Years. All around the world this line is being repeated several million times in a span of 24 hours. It’s said to your friends, family, neighbours and stork clerks. With the rise of digital messaging, many would send out Happy New Year’s messages to those around them as well. I’m the same, every year I send out a Happy New Year’s message to everyone I’ve consistency talked to over the year. I do not know why I’ve done this, but it’s been a practice I’ve followed for the last 8 years.

 As the years pass by, my friend circle dwindles down to nothing. As an overly private person, I don’t make connections easy and after school and University ended, that has become a near impossible task. Last year, after seeing a future with nobody to send Happy New Year messages to, I decided to expand the list to people that I wanted to get to know better as well. Eventually, people will get busy in their lives, without using social media to remind other of your existence, it’ll fade away into dust. A simple greeting with a fun activity you did together, like playing board games, helps refresh your memory of why you continue to hang around them. It also gives a small talking point, so conversation doesn’t immediately die off.

 Every year, I send a New Year’s greeting to everyone I talked to and others I wanted to continue interacting with. Overtime, this list gets smaller and smaller and one day, there’ll be nobody left to message. I hope that this day doesn’t come and my practice of messaging people means I won’t be forgotten. So do you have a similar practice, where you message Happy New Year’s to people? What’s your criteria for messaging others?