On Time and Why We Celebrate New Year’s Day

Time. Time heals. Time flies. What a concept!

When the whites came, what concept of time did they find with us? I wondered. Did they find that we told days as they did: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…? Did we know that a month has 30 days? Did we know that a year has 366/365 days? We could have celebrated birthdays, at least the royals did, but how? Was it a birthday or a birth season? A random Memorial Day, perhaps?

Classical African literature has told us of market days and moons and weather seasons. Celebrations. Feasts and dances and perhaps some bloody entertainment—Amalinze, “the cat”. Whether we told time as we do now does not matter much. What matters is that we told it anyway and we celebrated it. Its passing and its coming. Achievements and failures. Yes, failures, because the failing had also finally come to an end. After a climb comes a descent.

As we waited for New Year’s Day, it was the celebration that got me thinking about the concept of time. What is Time? Why do we tell time? What does it signify? What does it tell us? Apart from telling us what it is, that it is Thursday night, 1 January 2026 at 1:42 a.m., and telling us what it was and will be, Time plays the role of a pivot, a joint, a compass, a map. Time defines for us what to do, when to, and how. If we are mind, body and soul, then Time is the Fourth Estate. But even more, Time is our true point of convergence. Time is the only thing we all have and share, but cannot alter or control. We cannot stop or move Time.

In the beginning, there was Time. So, this world could not be without Time. For it is written in Genesis 1:1‒3 (New International Version):

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. …

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

So, what did God create first? Time, I dare say. But God created the heavens and the earth first, it is so written, you say. And when did God create the heavens and the earth, as it is written, I dare ask. Was it not “In the beginning”, and is that not a concept of time? Well, that’s just to show you the order of creation, but not to tell time. And what then is to show me what was before God created? Of course, God was, how dare you ask that? Yeah, I know, and with Time— “In the beginning”!  And more so, do you know that no single version of the Bible says, ‘God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning’? I ask. You do realise the story is told in the past, because in the present of its telling, Time already exists, and it has to be employed in the story to tell it meaningfully!

Okay, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was all over. And then God created light, which he separated from the darkness, calling the light “day” and the darkness “night”. And then—and only then—was there evening and then morning to make the first day. That’s right, God’s third creation was light, and with it came the first day, you proudly point out. Aha, but God only created the sun and the moon on the fourth day, so how did evening and morning come to pass before the sun and moon were created? Because without the sun and the moon, man could not have understood day or night, and so evening or morning, and that’s why the scripture says that the sun and the moon were also created to “serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years”. So, did God not need the light (day) to be able to tell time (the first day)? I ask. I think God knows what he’s doing even before he does it, so he knew that Time is of the essence and decided to create it first for the management of the earth and all creation. Interesting! The earth, therefore, could not have been whole, complete, without Time.

One thing we get from this biblical analogy is that Time creates a sense of accountability. Without Time, we could not tell what we have done or how much for how long. Time helps us account to ourselves. We need Time to plan our work and to measure if we have followed our plan or whether it is us or the plan that is not working. God was able to know what he had created first and what he needed to create next because of Time. Light birthed Time, Time gave us sight to see and to know. So, as Time gives us a sense of accountability, so does it come with a sense of organisation and planning.

Similarly, Time also permits us to rest from work. If it were all night as it was in the beginning, then how would we be able to work? Also, if it were all day, then how would we be able to rest? We retire because of Time. Because of Time, we take vacations, we go on holiday, we leave work in the evenings.

Our lives are orderly because of Time. Imagine the chaos that would be without Time. Our laws and policies are premised on time. Daytime, nighttime, and seasonal time in terms of weather and climate change. Even punishment for crimes has a time factor, whether time will be shut completely or how many days one will serve in prison.

But we don’t celebrate time because of all these good things. We celebrate time because of what it signifies and how it affects us physically and psychologically. If it rained and never stopped, we would never celebrate a sunny day. If it shone and never rained, we would never celebrate the coming of the rains. This is the reason we love winter, spring, summer, and autumn. For this appreciation, we are also able to appreciate the rest of nature’s beauty and its rich diversity. We live through the harshest of dry spells because we know some day, the rains will come, even if they no longer come as they regularly did. If we weren’t sure about waking up, we certainly would never go to sleep. Also, we learn that good things don’t last. And they may not be good if they are much as well. It’s that assurance of life and its abundance that Time gives us.

Therefore, with such confidence and faith, we can have hope. Even when life throws us hard against a wall, and we can’t seem to do anything about it, we can live through it believing that the moment shall also pass. And that hope is made alive every day and every month and every year, because those times are way too different in length, yet they pass. If one day cannot do it, a week will, maybe a month, maybe a decade… but someday, it too shall come to pass. And yes, some things don’t come to pass before we do pass. But what’s life if not it? My father says, and I agree, that from the moment we are born, we struggle to live. I could face the rest of the iceberg, but as long as I still hold my breath, I am winning. We celebrate time because it reassures us of these wins in life. Time symbolises but also rekindles our struggles to live, and the successes and failures we have achieved and endured, and our faith in life, and our role in nature. This is the ultimate reason why we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and New Year’s Day.

Time is Love. Happy New Year 2026. Time heals. Time flies.