Like the moment separating the ride up a rollercoaster and the abrupt, swift ride down the rollercoaster, early January is that moment of stillness on top of the ride. That still moment can easily stretch itself out for a week or two each January before momentum takes it all away again.
Every January is a new beginning, new year, new canvas, new adventures, new accomplishments, new challenges, new people to meet, new places to go.
Early January is not at all like the Race of Summer in between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. That Race of Summer has no time to dawdle. Like an auto race with its green flag to start the race, the white flag for one more lap, and the checkered flag for the winner, the Race of Summer needs to start very quickly, and on time! Summer weather, sunshine, fashions, BBQs, and vacations will not wait — there is no time to waste!
However, there is always a little extra time in early January to daydream deeper about the upcoming year.
Athletes have a word for this daydreaming – they call it previsualization. Think about those daring winter skiers who race down slippery mountains in between gates, jumps, and turns. While one racer is jumping in the air a few feet above the starting gate to provide themselves a few more feet of gravity as they start their run, other skiers behind them are closing their eyes and swaying their bodies to match the layout of the upcoming race.
Yearly Self Examination, Just Two Key Questions
Early January works best with eyes closed for a week or two, while listening to some favorite improvisational music as the new year’s new gates, jumps, and turns fully identify themselves for another year.
My favorite music for early January has always been Pink Floyd music, that tumbling, seductive, nebulas, psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll. I feel more people listen to more Pink Floyd each January than any other time of the year. I listen to it both while previewing the upcoming year and then listen to even more Pink Floyd music while rewinding the highlights of the previous year with all those exhilarating accomplishments, challenges, awards, and adventures.
My favorite tune has always been The Great Gig in the Sky with Clare H. Torry belting out her soulful wordless vocals. I’m not sure which is more enjoyable previewing some upcoming adventures or revisiting last year’s adventures.
Are we really a different cohort now?
Seasoned marketers know that if you take the 340 million Americans and separate us by age, income, and education you only have about 30 different groups or cohorts. There are about nine different single men, twelve different single women, eight different couples, and an odd extra cohort or two. Each year with some growth in education, wealth, and age we could have easily been pushed into another cohort again. Where are we now? What are we buying now? Who are the new heroes? Did our closest friends join us in this cohort too? (By the way, we are not so much the United States of America as much as the United Cohorts of America. When a couple of cohorts try to dominate and exclude everyone else, we have developing problems. There is room for all of us)
Which geniuses will we visit this year, and how close can we get?
We all have choices. Each year we can visit, absorb, honor, acknowledge the very best of us. Geniuses can be athletes, scientists, entertainers, artists, writers, musicians, even politicians, or more. There is an old saying, “You are what you eat.” Well, life’s journey can also be the amount of time you may have spent with geniuses.
For example, last year my wife, Sharon, and I joined an intimate gathering to view most of the life’s work of Johannes Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Some enterprising project managers had gathered 28 of his paintings from different institutions around the world to create a major retrospective exhibition. Our timed-tickets allowed us to conveniently wander around and stand just four feet away from his exquisite story-telling paintings. Later that week we also visited the nearby Van Gogh Museum to view among other work Vincent van Gough’s final paintings before he died. It felt like we had successfully passed through even more gateways inching us both closer to fully understand what true genius is all about.
Sometimes you can be four feet away from a genius or their work, other times you can be lost in a crowded stadium while the they perform, or alone with their writings in a cozy cafe. Each and every year there are an ever-increasing collection of choices on what to do or where to go to get closer to another genius.
Trajectory Alignment, and Departure
Nowadays we have a true advantage. Due to the invention of the drones, we see more and more transitional scenes in movies, videos, and TV shows due to the low costs of drones with cameras. Back in the day, using helicopters to take these aerial camera views was a rather large expense and rarely used but now we enjoy these bird’s eye views all the time. Consequently, because of all these drones views we see now it’s much easier to imagine our own drone’s view or bird’s eye view of our own upcoming year.
Each new year often starts the night before with late night kisses, fireworks, and celebrations at the stroke of midnight, but the new year doesn’t really begin until we tell ourselves we’re ready.
Taking a little extra time to fully reimagine another year has its benefits. With fresh destinations in mind, and renewed confidence it becomes obvious when to stop the pause and let momentum and the ride take us forward again for the next collection of adventures and triumphs. The lull in early January truly has the most precious/playful fleeting moments. I hope you enjoyed your early January lull as much as I enjoyed mine again.
We’ve got this 2024 thing, don’t we?
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