Outside, the cheers are going around, and I can hear the fireworks. The explosion and colour are all around, and the smoke fills the air. Downstairs, I can hear the television hosts clinking small glasses of champagne to celebrate. However, I can also hear the family dog barking like crazy and I have the knowledge that there are frightened birds and animals all around the local area who are confused and have no idea what is happening. I am upstairs, in bed, reading a book, and I have the sense that I am meant to feel something but I really do not.

New Year’s Eve is upon us! The countdown has been happening. All around, there are New Year’s Eve parties – I know because I have been to many of them. I have been to pubs, attended house parties with family, friends, and neighbours over the years, set off fireworks, and witnessed this so-called “magical” night in Germany and Ireland. However, New Year’s Eve has always felt hollow to me.

It is not that I am against joy and celebration; it just is not for me. Please note that if it is for you, I wish you all the best with it. This blog is not a complaint about it, as such – it is more a note about my own nervous system. We are all different, and this is not a judgement — just an observation of what doesn’t work for me. This piece is simply an observation about what does not work for me.

Fireworks, Noise, and My Problem with the Spectacle

The first time I walked into a nightclub, I knew immediately that it wasn’t for me. I lasted about twenty minutes before leaving. Over the years, I went occasionally, but somewhere deep in my system, I always knew this environment didn’t suit me. I enjoy a quiet pint in good company, a proper conversation — real connection.

Maybe the New Year’s Eve celebrations remind me a lot of that type of noise and spectacle. It is a form of noise that does not really invite listening. There is often not a lot of reflection involved with it. The sound of fireworks does not really say anything. I could understand it, maybe, if someone had a terrible year and was desperate to see the back of it, or if the year they were welcoming in promised to bring a lot with it. If that is the case, then absolutely, why not start the new year with a bang?

But more often than not, the fireworks happen simply because it’s the ritual.

For me, New Year’s Eve is often a big, noisy event that fills the space but leaves little room for communication. Perhaps I am thinking too much about it, but it can just feel like sound that is not really trying to convey anything meaningful. The volume, sights, and sounds of the fireworks replace the idea of approaching the year with reflection and intention. The scale of the event, along with the images we receive from everywhere across the world – of the Sydney Opera House and Times Square – can often overshadow the depth of what it means to welcome in the new year. The louder the explosions, the less it seems to require of us.

I don’t think my nervous system is built for a ritual that is built on explosion rather than connection.

Performative Celebration and the Illusion of Change

I remember one New Year’s Eve when I visited a friend and we went out to a local pub to ring in the new year. The best part of the evening was everything else. We had spent most of the day having a few beers while playing FIFA, and we watched Die Hard afterwards. Admittedly, after drinking for most of the day, I don’t think we paid much attention to the film, and the hangover the following morning was fairly rough.

What has stayed with me, though, is the discomfort I felt at the actual countdown. When the clock struck midnight and the cheers erupted, I felt nothing. It is an intensely performative moment — the cheering, the shouting, the sense that something important has just happened — but internally there was only that emptiness. I remember thinking we would have been better off watching Die Hard at that moment instead.

Countdowns and the societal pressure surrounding New Year’s Eve present the idea that this moment should mean something — that it should be big, transformative, and emotionally charged. Yet once the clock ticks on, time simply continues as before. The clock changes, but we do not. The countdown to midnight feels like a doorway into something new, but more often than not it leads into the same room.

Perhaps it is the extravagant, performative nature of the evening — the insistence that this will be the best night of the year — that has led me to opt out of it. This is not because I do not believe in change, growth, or the idea of becoming a “better” version of myself. I do. But the circumstances feel wrong. It is easy to make big declarations when the music is loud, the drinks are flowing, and external expectations are high. New Year’s Eve encourages announcing intentions, but it rarely encourages putting the slow, unglamorous plans in place to make them happen.

I trust what people do on January 2nd, January 3rd, and January 10th far more than what they announce on New Year’s Eve.

In 2020, I started running as a way to get through the Coronavirus lockdowns. From that experience, I learned that it is not big, performative actions taken under external pressure that change your life or build lasting habits. Change comes from turning up on ordinary mornings, in bad weather — rain, wind, and cold — when nobody is watching. It comes from something internal, from wanting to do the work for yourself.

You do not reach the point of running a marathon by starting at zero and making a declaration at midnight. Marathons do not happen by announcing intent alone. Running has taught me that change rarely feels dramatic. It feels repetitive, unglamorous, and occasionally a little boring. Habits – true habits – are seldom spectacular. It looks like getting up and heading out alone on a cold January morning, long after the celebrations have ended.

That said, this is only my experience. Perhaps for others, the energy of a big declaration really is the catalyst they need. We are all wired differently.

Can Change Happen on New Year’s Eve?

Perhaps it is surprising, given my reservations about New Year’s Eve, but I do believe that resolutions can make a difference.

In 2015, I made a simple resolution to start keeping a diary – just a few notes about each day as it passed. What began as short entries gradually turned into copybooks filled from cover to cover with observations, reflections, and small details of daily life.

That resolution became the starting point for something much bigger.

It worked partly because it was uncomplicated. I had always enjoyed writing and wanted to return to it for pleasure. I remember a sign in our English classroom that read: “If you want to be a writer, write.” I took that sentence seriously and treated the diary as an experiment rather than a performance.

Crucially, I never announced this resolution to anyone. There was no countdown, no public declaration, no external pressure. It was something I wanted to do quietly, for myself. And yet, the admittedly arbitrary date of New Year’s Day helped get the ball rolling. That, in itself, is worth acknowledging.

I kept a diary for three full years – well over a thousand days. I did not write every single day, but I wrote most days. Eventually, the habit changed shape rather than disappearing. Today, I keep a notebook of annual goals and milestones: my runs, blog posts, podcast episodes, expenses, and ongoing projects. Page after page of ordinary records.

This system allows me to live intentionally. It provides gentle prompts when I have time to spare — reminders to focus on something meaningful rather than slipping into distraction. As I move through my mid-30s, it helps me take time seriously. I do not want to reach my 50s wondering where it all went. I want to be able to look back and know, concretely, what I did with the years I was given.

So perhaps my issue is not with the turning of the calendar itself, but with how we approach it. I don’t enjoy the countdown. I don’t trust the declarations made in noise and excitement. But I do look forward to the following morning – to January 1st – when things are quiet, when a new notebook can be opened, and when the work can begin again.

I started 2026 with a run in crisp January air. No announcement, no spectacle. Just movement, intention, and the hope that I will still be doing the same on January 10th, and long after.

Conclusion: A Different Kind of Beginning

I don’t dislike New Year’s Eve because I reject joy or celebration. I dislike it because it asks me to feel something on command. It demands noise when I am drawn to intention, and spectacle when I am thinking about continuity.

For me, real change doesn’t announce itself loudly. It happens in the ordinary days that follow — in the habits we return to when no one is watching, in the choices we make when the excitement has worn off. It looks like running on cold mornings, writing a few lines in a notebook, taking meaningful action to achieve your goals, and showing up again and again without applause.

So while the fireworks fade and the countdown passes, I am content to begin the year in my way. Not with declarations, but with intention. Not with noise, but with attention to what I will actually set out to accomplish in the year ahead.

That, for me, is enough of a celebration.