New year? What new year? Really? Yes, it is already March. Okay, hold on, we’ll get back to that question.

The quotation in the picture above, from physicist Richard Feynman, is one of the coolest things ever said by a human who was not only smarter than 99% of us could ever dream of being, but also very wise. Here is another wise observation, free of charge: March 6 is not the 65th day of this year. It is the first day of the one that ends a year from now. Yes, it is refreshingly and irrefutably true: Today is the first day of the rest of your life. The perfect day for a new start! (And if we blow it today, well then, tomorrow is also the perfect day for a fresh start.)

But let’s not take that line of logic too far, because eventually it will be necessary to recognize… “There I go, fooling myself again.” Because one of the things our clever, self-sabotaging brains can do is to take a piece of genuinely good advice and make a mockery of it. Believe this: To act so shallow and facetious will never hurt the person who gave the advice as a way of offering encouragement. The only person it will harm is guess who — the stubborn, self-deceiving idiot that is the worst version of you.

Back to the Feynman quote… Like any truly valid idea, the same point can be expressed in other ways, like, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time — but you can’t fool yourself.” Okay, maybe you can, for a while. In fact, some people manage to do it for years, decades, or even (worst-case scenario) an entire lifetime.

The problem is, the one entity that can never be, and has never been, successfully fooled is one’s own subconscious mind. No matter how brilliantly a person seems to have finessed this self-deception, the trick never really worked. That it seemingly, supposedly, allegedly worked turns out to be the #1 topic about which that person has fooled himself or herself. Other than the genuinely and seriously mentally incapacitated, nobody really gets away with chronic self-deception.

Please, do not be a sucker for that fallacious, self-deceptive reasoning. Recall, instead, one of the most trite old sayings ever: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Furthermore, “trite” is a very disrespectful word for “universal truth.” Today, March 6, is the first day of the year that will finish up next March 5. It is a brand new, perfectly good, legitimate year, and we have hardly used up a bit of it yet. The year that begins today is just as filled with potential as any old cliché January 1st-starting year.

This topic has arisen here before, and now it’s back. Really, in one way or another, it should be every day’s topic. Of all the nasty gremlins that infest our innocent minds, self-deception is exceptionally stubborn because it starts early and finds the environment very comfortable. What could be better than telling yourself exactly what you want to hear? What could be more delightful than hearing exactly what you want to hear and believing it?

This is where approximately 99% of our problems take root — in the grimy underworld of self-deception. One of the easiest, most comfortable subjects to deceive ourselves about is our relationship to substances and habits. What is actually going on may be perfectly clear to any objective onlooker, but we are spectacularly capable of remaining ensnared by our own self-deceptions for an entire lifetime.

This fact is very difficult to believe, but trust us: There are people who, at this very moment, are telling themselves that since they fell off the wagon already, their habit is good to go until next January, and sorry, it’s plainly too late, because nothing can be done at this late date. Such a person will imitate sorrow and disappointment, will shake their head, and pretend contrition. If you are that person, kindly receive this message in the helpful spirit that motivates it:

Knock it off, Clownie, because you are the biggest fool in the room.

That message might be conveyed by someone you love, so please don’t hold it against them. Best-case scenario, one of these days you will wake up and deliver it to yourself. That day could be today, and here is a little tip from the secret archives of insider knowledge. Even if you already messed up today, it is not necessary to wait until midnight before acting differently. You may have heard the expression, “It’s 4:20 somewhere.”

By that same logic, somewhere on Earth, it is almost midnight, and the start of a new day.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Written by Pat Hartman. First published March 6, 2026.

Source:

“The Origins of 4/20: How a Simple Code Became a Cannabis Movement,” Blossommj.com, undated.

Image Copyright: BrainyQuote.com.