The arrival of a new year — especially when it is the start of a new decade — marks a time of reflection for all of us.

We pause to think back to the decade that has come and gone, and wonder too, what our lives will be like 10 years from now.

Each of us ponders the questions, “Where have I been? And where am I going?”

The latter asks us to foresee 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 — none of us has a crystal ball. The vicissitudes of life more often than not throw us curve balls that lay waste to even the best-laid of our plans for the year — let alone the decade — to come. 

However, coming up with an answer to the former question can be equally difficult. It requires both introspection and understanding, two qualities that are in short supply in our hurried lives. We barely have enough time to do all the things we need to do every day, let alone to try to figure out how we got to where we are, wherever it is we may be.

Life does not take a time-out. The years — and decades — will continue to march on. While we, individually and collectively, may have some control over our future, all of us inexorably will be swept along by the currents of time and fortune that will bring us to a destination that none of us can foresee.

In the spirit of a new year — and a new decade — we offer our readers the enduring 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.