More than any other holiday celebration, New Year’s marks the passing of time, a transition from the old to the new, a journey from the known to the unknown. Although the standard custom is to go out and party and have a good time, New Year’s presents us the opportunity to gain insight into ourselves, our memories of the past year, and our hopes, dreams, and fears for the future year.Like birthdays, New Year’s encourages us to look back and ahead. But where birthdays mark a new year for individuals, New Year’s is a time for everybody, when we all have the opportunity to review our lives and our deeds as individuals and as a society.In many cultures, New Year’s is a day of reconciliation to provide an occasion for closing rifts and healing disputes. It acts as a kind of cleansing ceremony with a chance to look back upon the last year, what good things happened, what bad things happened, and our hopes and fears for the upcoming year.When the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve amidst all the hugging, kissing, The New Year’s celebration is the acknowledging that we cannot welcome in the New Year without saying goodbye to the old one. Letting go of the past, whether pleasant or painful, can be our biggest challenge as we stand at the threshold of an unknown future in the coming year. And more than any other holiday, the way we celebrate New Year’s changes with who we are. Our stage of life determines how we spend New Year’s Eve, and how we spend New Years’ Eve also tells us something about what is important to us. More often than not we may not really stop and think about how we want to spend New Year’s. Instead, we may usually spend the night doing what we think we should be doing. New Year’s has a lot to teach us about ourselves. We all need time to reflect and New Year’s is an ideal time of year for self-reflection. We can look back on unfulfilled hopes and dreams, reassess what we want. Possibly chart a new course for the months ahead or stay on the current track. By taking the time to figure out or reevaluate what we want for ourselves each passing year, we can avoid just doing what others think we should and also sharpen our clarity on what we truly desire. In any case, the time we take to embrace what we really want and who we are can enable us to experience New Year’s holidays with more peacefulness, gratitude and happiness.