2025: Another Year Or A New Year?

By Bola BOLAWOLE

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How many people know the difference between another year and a new year? When, on the eve of a new year we shout “Happy New Year!”, how many have an understanding whether the new year they are ushering in will be just “another” year or they actually want it to be a “new” year different in many respects from the outgoing year? Someone said the new year, much like birthdays, should be celebrated with all sobriety because they move us closer to the grave! Rather than say “I am a year older today”, we ought to say that we are a year closer to our grave! This must be what scripture means when it admonishes us in Psalm 90:12 : “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”

Many rejoice at the prospect of escaping the outgoing year because of the calamities, frustrations, and disappointments it might have visited on them. So, it is good riddance to bad rubbish! For others, it is not themselves but others that have been so unfortunate. Therefore, they give thanks that they did not partake in the troubles that were the lot of others. New year offers an opportunity to make good what went wrong or what didn’t add up in the outgoing year. Where lines did not fall in nice places (Psalm 16: 5), the new year offers another opportunity to set things on proper footing and hope – plan – for the best. Unless you know it and consciously work towards it, the year that rolls in may just be “another” year – and there may be nothing “new” in it or about it.

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For those who have everything working well for them, will they still covet a new thing in the new year? The answer, I think, is yes! Everyone wants add-ons, regardless of how well served they have been in the past or are at the moment. Human needs, we have been told, are insatiable; so, everyone wants a turnaround that will make their best even better. Oh, there must have been many with bad memories of the year that was winding down who would never want to be reminded of it!

For such, the desire is something different, refreshingly different, in the new year. They want to forget their sorrows. They want to shut the door firmly against the past and look forward with hope towards the future. In the new year, they must recover all! And they must march forward and forget all the sorrows of the past.

Isaiah 43: 18 – 20 is apt here, for it says: “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it will spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen”

These are comforting words for anyone trying to put the past behind him or her and looking at the new year not just as “another” year but as a “new” year in truth and in deed: A year that forecloses the pains, anguish and sorrow of the past; that makes a way where there had been no way and brings hope where there had been hopelessness.

The wilderness is one place where someone can easily lose his way; the wilderness of life is a place of hopelessness where, whether one moves forward or goes backward offers no reprieve. Making a way there immediately brings hope – the hope of seeing light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how long. I have been in the desert of northern Nigeria before and I know that the most prized commodity there is water – not gold or rubies. Water in the desert means life. The absence or lack of it means sure death – slow and painful death.

A new year that brings happiness as opposed to another year with its drudgery, however, comes with a price. Newness of life, newness of hope, and newness of aspiration must consciously be harnessed. Scripture tells us how this should be done in Luke 5: 37 – 39 when it says: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved…” Old habits that profited nothing in the previous year must yield way for new habits that will make the new year not “another” year but a “new” year indeed. New ideas, new thought processes, new and better ways of doing things are imperative to making the new year “new” indeed.

Scripture says “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). If you can say it, believing it, you can do it! If you believe you can fly in this new year, then, believe you me, you will fly! If you can dream
it, you can achieve it. Most of the inventions we know today started as dreams. And some were even mistakes! So, don’t be afraid to make mistakes if you really want 2025 to be a “new” year and not “another” year – drab, lacklustre and uneventful in all its ramifications.

The quotes from the bible here do not foreclose anyone. If you are a Christian, fine; but if not, no hassles. Only “if thou canst believe…” (Mark 9: 23). God has constructed our mind as a powerhouse. What remains to be seen is the use to which the individual puts his or her own mind. This year, to make the year truly “new” and not “another” year, put your mind to positive use only. Hold on to the word of God that says: “Behold, I make all things new”. And as if He knows that you need further assurance, He follows this up by saying: “Write: for these words are true and faithful”!

May 2025 be a happy new year and not just another year to all my esteemed readers in Jesus mighty name!

FEEDBACK

And the man died…

Death will come when it will. It is the eventual end of all living things. Physical life is temporal.

Yes, you are right to demand for Government policies that will intervene in some cases but remember the case of Abiola’s first wife? Money was put to shame! The woman died. Methuselah lived for over 900 years, but he still died. Once “Olojo” beckons, there is no controversy! The senseless destruction of life in some parts of the country and elsewhere in the world is a case of the wickedness of man. Even God regretted creating man (Gen. 6:5 & 6). Can you still remember the physical appearance of your progenitors 150 years ago? So in another 150 years, will your children’s children remember you? It is a natural thing to die! If we were not to die and people like Adam, Abraham, Isaac and the others are still walking around today, how will it be? I believe God’s plan for man to live for a while and die is the best. How the individual utilizes the opportunity will determine how people will remember him – and for how long. Sango was a king in Oyo, people turned him into a deity and still worship him up till today. Oranmiyan and many others were human beings who died but are still being remembered till today. Awolowo’s actions in the old Western Region make people still talk about him. – Pa E. K. Odeleye.

Add to your write-up on the above subject-matter the state of our hospitals where we have qualified doctors willing to work but lack of medical equipment to handle patients with complications hinders them. There is nothing they do abroad that we cannot do here if the enabling environment is provided. You can imagine that UCH did not have electricity for months last year and the mortuary was becoming a health hazard! The problem is that we have arm-chair ministers, heads of departments and parastatals who should be on their feet to see that the work is done. Until we put sincere, selfless and hard-working people in positions of authority, Nigeria will forever be crawling. – Chief (Mrs.) Jumoke Anifowose.

That was very philosophical, cogent and reflective! Lo, of all the appropriate questions asked, the most useful to livelihood and to humanity is “What is the purpose of life, after all?” Lo, how beneficial it would be if people of power and means, and all of us, can ponder and make necessary amends! But most unfortunately, as the Scripture says, “The heart of man is desperately wicked, who can know it?” – Elder Olaitan Makanjuola.

Death is an in-built mechanism. All animals, anything with life, are programmed to die. The universe itself is programmed to stop existing one day! – Afuw 7777.

* Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, BOLAWOLE was also Managing Director/ Editor-in-Chief of The Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in the New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.