Is that a guarantee you're offering me?

One of things I do every day is read the comics. Peanuts is on my list of daily reads. At first I found the installment for 1 January funny. Then I started thinking about it. See what you think:





Poor Charlie Brown. All he's doing is offering a simple wish that I'm sure that all of us hear and say to many people, especially in the last two days. And here Lucy is just being her obstinate and belligerent self. But really, just because you say "Happy New Year" doesn't mean that I'm actually going to have a happy year.

On another site that I visit daily, sluggy.com, the author has a New Year's wish: "Happy 2009! May it be even more unbelievably fantastic than 2008 was! (Take that as earnest or sarcastic depending on how your year went)"

2008 was pretty good for me. (I was going to look back over ’08 and look ahead to this year, but I find that I talk too much. Type, write, whatever. The entry then got a little long.) There were some difficulties, but for the most part, I had a good year. I’m sure that I’ll have some difficulties this year. I know that good things will happen this year. But whether I have a good year or not is going to depend more on my attitude than the things that I can’t control. So if I expect that this year will be “unbelievably fantastic”, then it will be. I don’t know what will happen, but I know that if I just look to the positive side of things, I’ll end up having a good year. That’s not quite a guarantee of a happy year, but I’ll do my best to have one.