REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

For many years, I felt the end of the year and the beginning of the next really was something to truly celebrate. Let’s get rid of this boring old year we have now and get a new one going; next year will be so much better than this one was the belief.

Of course, the feeling that the grass is always greener was the misconception of youth. The fact was that when you got to the end of the first week in January, you suddenly realised that nothing had miraculously altered in the slightest.

We all have good and bad years but now that I have a lot of years on my score sheet, I’ve learned that time is not only precious but generally nothing much changes overnight — unless the proverbial hits the fan.

You won’t see me wishing for this year to hurry up and end; slow and easy is the go — time goes fast enough as it is for heaven’s sake.

So may I just offer these thoughts up: that we don’t long for this year to end and put our troubles behind us on 1 January, like turning a light switch off, but think about how lucky we are and … cruise. Smell the flowers.

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It says a lot about Kiwis that we more often than not know what is the right thing to do and we just get on with it and do it. It’s in our DNA, I reckon. This is what we have to do to make things work best for us; let’s all do it and keep doing it until we have knocked the bastard off.

Hopefully, we will get a summer and holidays this year almost like every other year. There are only a handful of countries that can do this so let’s be vigilant and careful with how we behave. Let’s stay smart and lucky in the year ahead, because we know that on 1 January our world won’t miraculously be any different.

We have so many reasons to be cheerful as the year ends, and if we think and we are careful we will have even more soon.

So, from all the team here at The Shed, have a wonderful summer holiday, a happy new year, and let’s stay smart, team.

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