Happy New Year (but not the end of the decade!)

What’s so special about a year ending in “9”? Well, the vast majority of us seem to think that it is the end of a decade, century, or millennium. If nothing else it gives news organizations and list-makers plenty of fodder, which can then be re-hashed next year as the “true” end of the decade. While there is no “official” determinant to a decade’s end I personally follow the practice of counting ten items such as stars or years from “one to ten” as opposed to “zero to nine”.

Consider this. In the Gregorian Calendar there is no year "0". The first year of the first decade/century/millennium was the year "1". The last year of the first decade was "10", century was "100", etc. So, sorry, folks, we've got one more year to put a positive spin on the "aughts" before the decade of the "teens". Call me a pedantic curmudgeon. Go ahead...I've been called much worse things. But dem's de facts, Jack.

This mindset actually proves very handy for those “milestone” birthdays; when I turned fifty I thought of it as the last year of the decade of my “forties”, which softened the blow until the following year, when I finally couldn’t escape the inevitable. So, for me, the decade lasts one more year. It can only get better, right?