Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

2010 Completion - behind and ahead

Julie Carter

We are here again - the dawning of a new year with new numbers, new opportunities.

It is traditionally a time when many re-evaluate their lives, make resolutions and look with great hope to the months ahead.

Experience says we humans don't usually keep those promises that we make to ourselves.

Personally, I've learned to circumvent that disappointment in myself by not making any resolutions that aren't already part of my character.

You know, those things like breathing, sleeping, eating. I promise to do all those things in 2010.

I will admit to taking a bit of time to think about what I should do for my health, wealth, happiness and the greater good of mankind.
It can be an exhausting process due to the length of the mental journey required using limited resources.

Firewood splinters, fireplace ash dust everywhere on everything and a perpetual lingering smell of cedar smoke mark the season.

With cold, snow and gloomy skies dominating the weather surrounding many of us, we handle it by eagerly anticipating
the wonders of the spring season that is surely just around the corner. Across the country, there is much discussion given to the new numbers we will write in every date - 2010.

Biblically, the number 10 means "completion," giving the year a numerical stamp of prophecy. Those things that have begun will be brought to completion.
Looking for God's promise in the coming year gives hope and raises spirits. Hope renewed - never a shortage of those needing that. I'm at the front of that line.

In our humanness, we have all, at one time or another, wandered in the proverbial wilderness. Perhaps simply deciding on a direction is the completion we can hope for in 2010.
My promise to myself is the same as it was in prior years. I resolve to be happy, laugh more and try to infect every person I meet with the same. Let that be a warning.

2010 -- which decade?

The great controversy for this calendar change is whether 2010 is the end of the first decade or the beginning of the second in this 21st century.

It is the end of a decade, as is the 10th year of the preceding 10 years, and it is the beginning of the decade of the "10s," allowing us to move on from saying "oh-eight" or 'oh-nine."

The mathematics for determining if it is end of the first decade or the beginning of the second involve understanding there was no year zero and that the calendar went directly from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D.

Had that happened in today's world, Homeland Security, the INS, IRS, Congress, the Senate and the White House would have been called to emergency sessions with hearings, audits, background checks and high alert warnings.

Based on the premise that we start counting with the number one, then 2010 is the end of the first decade.

Twitter users have sent the argument far and wide and one comment seemed particularly appropriate.
"Decades are largely irrelevant to the calendar: the ‘60s began in November 1963 and continued until the Beatles broke up."

In any event, what will you start saying in this New Year, "Two thousand ten or Twenty-ten?"

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net