RSSHappy New Year?
Gene Lalor | January 2, 2010
I think it’s all very fitting and proper that perfect strangers on the street, on the phone, or even in darkened alleyways wish us a “Happy New Year” and that we return the favor.
It’s just a common courtesy, a common expression of politeness much like the non-PC greeting of ”Merry Christmas” but devoid of all the needless rancor currently associated with mentioning the reason for the Christmas season.
However, what if the greetee of an unsolicited ”Happy New Year” salutation had just come off a miserable 2009 
and is facing an even more miserable 2010?
What if the greetee anticipates being out of a job, his home being foreclosed or, far worse, grave personal or family ilnesses which threaten to make job and home worries pale by comparison?
Sticky wickets there but still not sufficient reasons to turn away what’s really an innocuous wish that you have a good year.
So, Happy New Year! 
“At least, you have your health” is another comment that bugs some people–particularly relatively healthy, relative younguns when they’re encountering financial or personal travails and can’t see the health forest through all those barren money/personal trees.
I’d still accept and return the salutation since most of us have been there, done that.
Fortunate enough to still be enjoying, again relatively, decent physical and financial health amidst all the angst attendant on Obamanomics and the impending and denied gross horrors of Obamacare, I guess I shouldn’t lecture on the correctness of gracefully accepting a benign “Happy New Year!” greeting but I will anyway.
For one thing, unlike Obamanomics and Obamacare, ”Happy New Year!” doesn’t hurt anyone, right?
What is sort of hurtful is the growing sentiment among some younger segments of American society that we, once again relatively, and selectively, have it made in and out of the shade with our long-vested pensions, Social Security, maybe hard-earned savings and/or perhaps the added boon of inheritances.
The young may have a point there since their future financial comfort when they attain their golden-years will be largely contingent on the success or failure of their 401-k’s and 403-b’s and their astuteness or ineptness in managing those oft-employer-matched funds.
By the way, corporate 401-k’s and simple servant 403-b’s are two investment instruments which were non-existent for most of your parents’ lives.
Another reason to reciprocate those “Happy New Years!”
It’s also good for those under 40 to be patient as they struggle with life’s vicissitudes and once in a while smell the flowers as they reflect on the booty that may come their way in all good time.
That’s not to be confused with the vernacular “bootie” which can’t very well be quantified. 
By “booty” I refer to the piratical plunder of parental properties which happens when they exit this mortal coil, move on to either heavenly rewards or to hellish retribution, and, as with Scrooge’s 
associates, their heirs divvy up the spoils.
After looting bank accounts and investments and other personally-deprivational savings, with any luck, they will share the proceeds from fire-sales of their snowbird mom and dad’s Boca Raton or Arizonan trailer park vacation pads.
So, just say and accept those “Happy New Years!”
Younguns, at least the younguns I know, tend to bemoan their firm beliefs that, after paying into FICA, aka Social Security, for 40+ years, they won’t get a penny in payback return after subsidizing their parental and grandparental units’ “luxury lifestyles.”
Pssst, kids, we said the same thing and we were wrong. You guys may have to labor for more years than we before collecting but you’ll get yours eventually and since you’re actuarily scheduled to live far more years, it’s reasonable to expect you to work longer.
So, accept and return those ”Happy New Years!”
That greeting is a reference to past as well as to future years. Count whatever blessings you can find and tally now and hope that a year from now we can all give and receive greetings of “Happy 2011!”
Hope springs eternal, no?
Contributor's website: http://www.genelalor.com/
Content posted by users from other sites is posted for commentary and news purposes under fair use and each author is responsible for their own postings and a particular posting should not be construed as being endorsed by this site or its owner.
Leave a Reply
Loading ...Recommended Reading:
