Experiences – Life – Inspiration 🇨🇭🇯🇵

Every year I notice the same thing.

Big decisions rarely happen in December.

Not the ones that quietly change direction. Not the decisions that shift how we live, work, or see ourselves.

They tend to appear after the new year. Sometimes immediately. Sometimes a few weeks later. But almost never at the very end.

At first this feels strange. If the year is ending, shouldn’t we decide what comes next before it does?

But when I look across cultures, traditions, and even my own experience, a different pattern appears.

The end of the year is not for beginning. It is for closing.

Endings have their own job

In many places, the final days of a cycle are about wrapping up rather than starting fresh.

In Japan, December is filled with cleaning, settling things, and letting the year dissolve. Bonenkai literally means forgetting the year. Homes are cleaned not to prepare for something new yet, but to remove what no longer belongs.

In business, December is about closing books, not opening new chapters.

Endings ask us to look back honestly. At what worked. At what didn’t. At what we are still carrying without noticing.

You do not plant seeds in soil that hasn’t been cleared.

Why decisions come later

A new year is less about the date and more about the feeling of crossing a line.

Something loosens once the calendar turns. The past feels complete enough. The future feels open enough.

That space matters.

It gives decisions room to form without urgency. Without the pressure to finish strong or prove something before time runs out.

This is why changes often arrive after the turn rather than before it.

Rituals know this already

What I find interesting is that many cultures place their important rituals not at the end, but at the threshold.

Things are cleaned first. Accounts are settled first. Bodies and spaces are prepared.

Only after crossing into the new cycle do people commit, celebrate, or pray.

Close. Clean. Cross. Begin.

It’s a simple structure, but it shows a quiet understanding. Commitment needs a sense of arrival.

Even the body agrees

Late December is heavy. Days are short. Energy is low.

January brings light back, slowly but noticeably. Spring follows.

Long before planners and productivity systems, decisions moved with seasons. The body still seems to prefer it that way.

A softer conclusion

If you notice that your bigger decisions tend to come after the new year, it may not be hesitation or delay.

It may simply be timing.

Let endings end.

Begin when the ground feels clear enough to step forward.