(Editor’s note: Many years ago, as editorial page editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, I asked colleague Gery Steighner to pen a special New Year’s editorial that would stand the test of time. As per usual, Gery delivered, superbly. Reprinted below is that editorial that ran for many years, adjusted only slightly.)
New Year’s Day has no supernatural significance — it is calculated by one full rotation of the Earth, just as were the days of the year before.
Out of need, however, we mark Jan. 1 as a milestone, the end of one arbitrary division and the beginning of another. We choose a day and then attach meaning to it because we must. It’s in our bones.
It is the certainty that we survived something that brings feelings associated with this day. The past completed — the memory that it was endured, perhaps enjoyed — is comforting. A sense of a job well done is fitting.
The bag is mixed, though. We also are uneasy because the future is uncertain. Wonderful things may happen. And if this indeed be true, why worry?
Experience tells us, however, that we will be challenged in ways both expected and unexpected. We would be foolish to believe that risks will not be realized in fact.
But chances are the future will take care of itself if we are smart enough to treat it as an opportunity. Countless millions have done so and are today satisfied.
To each and every friend of this public policy think tank — and being high-minded this day, to even our foes — we wish a grand possibility fulfilled. At an unborn date when gratitude triumphs over fear, together we will wax nostalgic about Jan. 1, 2026.
Happy New Year!
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
