Hello.

And seeing what day it is, I’ll throw in a Happy New Year.

With the formalities pushed aside, I could dress this up with words like prosperous, dreams, and resolutions. And truth be told, I am excited about the year ahead. I sincerely hope you are too.
Yet when I woke up this morning, my mind wandered somewhere less festive.

We have no real idea what the new year holds, or how things will unfold. Still, we behave as though we are in control — as if we hold the keys to our future, to external forces, to chance itself. Today is the day when vows are made quietly and earnestly: to lose weight, drink less, get fit, stop smoking. Habits shaped by pressure, heartbreak, unhappiness — or the simple need for a vice to cling to, something to ease the weight we carry.

These habits can be changed. Kicked aside, even.
There is one thing, however, that no vow can touch: time.

Time is our power — and we give it away freely.
Never have I heard anyone speak of using their time wisely as a New Year’s resolution.

My thoughts drifted to what we chase in a lifetime: achievement, control, certainty. We build our castles on sand — promises and resolutions that the current of time inevitably erodes. The real treasures are not what we acquire, but what we experience. Moments are the true building blocks of a life well lived.

To cherish each tick of the clock not as a countdown, but as a gift — that may be the truest resolution of all.

Please read that again if you need to. Let it sink in. Let it become the foundation of the decisions you make going forward.

Because today, three hundred and sixty-five days from now, it will be yesterday again.

Wait — read it once more.

Three hundred and sixty-five days from today, it will be New Year’s all over again. Shocking, isn’t it? I should have warned you to attempt this thought only after coffee. Yet we serve our time up on a plate as though it were meaningless, even though it is one of the rarest commodities we possess.

Time loops strangely — folding back on itself like a Möbius strip. Each day carries yesterday’s lessons and tomorrow’s hopes, yet the calendar turns with relentless indifference. If your goals feel distant or your progress slow, remember this: the date will return. You will be offered the same fresh start again.

What will you do differently when it does?

There are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. Valuable days. We divide them into months — some long, some short — but the calendar is not where the truth lies. Try the knuckle mnemonic instead. Seven months with 31 days. Four with 30. One with 28 or 29. Precious days, every one of them.

So what do we do with them?

We exchange them for a salary.

We trade our comfort, our skills, our presence — often our homes and families — for a monthly figure calculated not on value, but on time surrendered. An age-old system designed to empower those who benefit from it most. Call it what it is: the machine.

The machine thrives on routine. Predictability. The illusion of stability. Predictable income. Predictable days. Predictable outcomes. But what if you stopped trading your most valuable asset for a currency that loses value with every passing second?

What if you invested your time instead — in experience, knowledge, relationships, purpose?

The machine doesn’t want this. It wants compliance. Replaceability. Cogs. But the cycle always returns, and each return offers a choice: feed the machine, or rewrite your story.

Consider the hours you give away. Each hour made of sixty minutes. Each minute of sixty seconds. All surrendered for an income that rarely lasts the month. In many systems, entire days are quietly worked for free. In bi-weekly pay structures, 26 pay periods cover only 364 days. One day lost each year. Two in a leap year.

Multiply that over a career — thirty-five, forty, forty-five years — and the numbers become uncomfortable.

At the end of it all, you’re offered a retirement package calculated with the same indifference, wrapped in fine print few truly understand.

The gears grind on, indifferent to dreams deferred or potential unrealized. So ask yourself: are you being paid for your worth, or assigned a value convenient to the system? Is the security real, or merely comforting?

If this unsettles you, good. It should.

Do you still feel valued?

Perhaps it’s time to trade your New Year’s resolution for a New Year’s revolution.

So do I.