The upcoming long weekend marks the start of the New Year — 2018.

The arrival of a new year marks a time for reflection, both as to the year that has passed and as to the year to come.

In the words of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson:

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

   The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

But to put it another way, we might ask ourselves, “Where have we been? And where are we going?”

The latter question asks us to see into the future, which by definition is an impossible task. Though we may make our best guess to predict what may lie ahead — and to plan accordingly — the vicissitudes of life more often than not throw us curve balls that lay to waste even the best-laid of our plans for the year ahead.

However, the former question is equally as tricky. Answering it requires both introspection and understanding, two qualities that are in short supply in our hurried world. We have barely enough time to do all the things we need to do every day, let alone try to figure out the, “Why?” of what we have done.

However, one thing we can advise all of our readers is that celebrating the New Year requires all of us to make sure that we do so safely and that we are vigilant regarding the safety of others.

Although most of us these days take precautions to ensure that we do not operate a motor vehicle while under the influence on New Year’s night — whether by means of having a designated driver, or using Uber, or staying overnight in a hotel — there still are too many among us who will get behind the wheel of a car while drunk. The most important thing we can do at an individual level is to prevent our friends and loved ones from becoming another statistic in the news the following morning by taking their keys or offering them a ride home if they appear incapable of driving soberly and safely.

We wish all of our readers — our neighbors and friends — a happy, healthy, and safe New Year.