Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Auld Lang Syne: What It Means and Why It Matters

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

What does Auld Lang Syne mean and why is its message so important?Find out in this episode. Also, Happy New Year! What are your intentions for this year? https://sarahmikutel.com/Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to Live Without Borders, a podcast about how to live the good life through stoicism, personal development, and cultural exploration. I'm your host, Sarah Megatel, an American in England who's here to help fellow citizens of the world like you make the most of the brief time you have here on Earth. It is time to make every moment matter. What does Old Langsine mean and why is its message so important? A New Year's Eve, I have always loved hearing this song Old Langsine, but I too. totally misunderstood what it was saying, or rather I had no idea what they were saying. My ears were hearing, may old acquaintance be forgotten and never brought to mind. I thought this sounded harsh, but I've been interpreting it as out with people and things that

aren't good for me and in with a happier, healthier future. I didn't really understand what they were saying, to be honest, for the most part, because the song is written in 18th century Scots, not modern English. In the late 1700s, Robert Burns, Scotland's most famous poet, wrote the lyrics to old L'Aing Zine based on a traditional song that he said he learned from an old Scottish man. Side note, my favorite Scottish tour company, Rabies, is named after Robert Rabby Burns. I now know that the first line of this poem song is not a statement about forgetting everybody from the past.

It's rhetorical question. It's a question asked to emphasize a point. Old Langsine can be translated as Times Gone By or for Old Time's Sake. And the first line of the lyrics are, should old acquaintance? be forgot and never brought to mind. Question mark. The poet is not saying, should we forget about the past and never think about it? Forget about the people we knew? No, let's have a drink for old time's sake. Let's remember the good. In Scotland in the 1600s, Presbyterians gained power and they banned Christmas celebrations, which they associated with Catholicism. New Year's became their

main winter celebration, which they call Hogmane. Today, as the clock approaches at midnight, Scottish people get together in a circle and they sing Old Langzine. There's a line in the song about offering a hand to a friend and during this part they cross their arms and the person on either side of them will take a hand and then they will walk or dance their way toward the center of the circle and back still holding hands and singing as they ring in the new year. I love this tradition of literally being connected to others as you welcome in the new year and remember times gone by. At this time of year, we spend a lot of time thinking about what we want for the year ahead. What are our intentions? We also need to reflect on the year that we just had. Yes, consider

how things could have gone better and changes that you can make going forward, but also what went right? What was great about this year? How is this year different from any other year? At the end of December, it has become very popular to say, thank God this year is over. The media loves to reinforce this by talking about how awful everything is. And many people did go through hard times this year. They lost someone they cared about. Maybe they're experiencing financial difficulties. Globally, people are dying in war and at the hands of authoritarian regimes. And there are regular people who are standing with their fellow citizens of the world. Individual people, not governments, but individuals donated more than $2 billion to help Ukrainian refugees this year.

Europe is taking action to get off Russian oil and to invest in clean energy. cancer rates are down in many parts of the world. Violent crime has fallen significantly in the U.S. since the 1990s, and this is based on statistics, not opinion. There is a lot of good in this world. Do certain people have it better than others? Of course. Is everyone treated fairly? No.

But just because the world isn't yet a utopia doesn't mean there's no gold to find. When I was a kid, my parents dragged me along with them to buy furniture. I grew up in New England, and this furniture shop was in an old colonial building. As my parents disappeared into a side room to shop for sofas, I flipped through the cassette rack at the front of the store. That is right, cassettes. The music that I was looking at was all new-agey stuff, like the kind of music that was piping through the speakers. And I started to read the back of the cassette tapes, and one of them said something like, we can't enter paradise until we learn to create it here on Earth.

And that always stuck with me. We need to be the positive change. and we need to look for the positive change that is already happening. Whatever you are going through, even in your darkest times, you have something in your life worth holding onto, something worth believing in. If you lost someone close to you this year, you have the memories of your time together.

If they weren't that kind, you have someone else in your life who hopefully is who helped you get through those tough times. And you can be that person for somebody else. You can be that light. If you've been saying, thank God, 22 is over, 20203 is going to be exactly the same. You don't have enough time here on Earth to write off an entire year. When we look for the bad, that is what our brain finds. We reinforce negative thoughts if that's all we are searching for.

If we want this to be a better year, we need to acknowledge the good from the last one for Old Langzine. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use. so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.