The benefits of a new year.

It is great that we look towards the moon to calculate the number of days in a lunar month and the seasons to get twelve months in a year.

However, why do we have seven days in a week and see the moon twice in a lunar month-on the first and fifteenth day of the month. Since it is a lunar month, why not put that as two months? Then we could have 24 months in a year. Well, I used to wonder a lot about such things.

However, I know the good reasons we have a new year day, be it lunar or Chinese, Muslim or any other kind of calender.

The first day of the new year gives us a new beginning. If the previous year had not been good, we can have another try at it. That is why people think of new resolutions, another chance, another twelve months to achieve what we failed to accomplish in the past year.

Besides that, the knowledge that the new year is just round the corner gives us the impetus to clean up not just the mess in improving ourselves, also the mess in our house. it gives us new vigour to remove all the cobwebs from the ceiling and hidden corners of our rooms. It gives us good reason to clean up the whole house as we know there will be visitors and our house-proud ego demands that our home looks presentable to all those who come.

And that is the reason the eve of the Chinese New Year is the time relatives come a calling or gather at one of the houses to have reunion lunch or dinner. Reunion dinners are important as it is the time of the year when all the close relatives get the opportunity to meet each other and overcome whatever distance that could have occured the last twelve months.

It is also the time for friends to have the chance to gather to exchange news and information about each other. Sometimes, we defer meeting with friends due to our presumably tight schedule. Thus, when the new year holidays come, we feel obligatd to visit, removing all excuses for not doing so. Sometimes, we just need such a reason to be closer with our friends.

Well, is not the celebration of a new year so beneficial to us? To all those celebrating the new year, let's look forward to better things to come.