New Year’s Day 2024

Today is the first day of 2024. I browsed the WhatsApp site of my Hong Kong classmates and Facebook. There are many “Happy New Year” greetings. There are also many pictures of celebration and feasting.

But I don’t want to wish you a happy New Year. Rather, I hope your new year will be a good mix of happiness and meaning. As I understand it, meaningfulness is more important than happiness. After all, happiness is fleeting.

According to one psychologist, Roy Baumeister, happiness tends to be more focused on the self and the present. Meaningfulness, on the other hand, is more focused on others. Meaningfulness also tends to focus more on the future.

We live in a troubling time. Not only are we suffering from the outcomes of climate change, but there are also sufferings of immense proportions in many places on Earth. Wars are raging in Gaza, Ukraine, and many other parts of the world. Perhaps celebration is not appropriate at this time. My last boss in the corporate world, Charlie, is a Jew. He and I have been good friends. Charlie told me that the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is a time of prayer, self-reflection, and repentance. I think it is a very wise tradition.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “Pain and suffering are inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”