Does everybody know how they’re ringing in the new millennium? (Even if it isn’t really the new millennium, we Americans are calling it that so who cares if we’re wrong. For a country that believed in equal rights for all men while also having legalized slavery, calling the millennium the wrong year doesn’t seem too cognitively dissonant.)

Like I was saying, know what you’re doing Dec. 31? I sure as hell don’t. It shouldn’t seem like a big deal, but it does. After all, I don’t know what I’m doing next Tuesday either, but I doubt that years down the line anyone will ask me how I rang in Dec. 7.

But every year there’s pressure to have some kind of New Year’s festivities, and this year is kind of the mother of all New Year’s. It’s ridiculous, but everyone falls victim to it at one time or another. You may spend every evening sprawled out on your couch watching “Crook & Chase” re-runs on TNN, but if you find yourself doing it on New Year’s Eve, you get depressed.

New Year’s is far from the only time this phenomena occurs. Depression, suicides and God knows what else are at their peak every Holiday season. For a little over a month every year we all suddenly feel like our lives should be a Norman Rockwell painting. Unfortunately, most of our lives are more like an Escher drawing, what with all the steps that lead nowhere and upside down waterfalls and all. What was that? Oh. Well, maybe that’s just me, then.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of warm fireplaces, hearty meals and family togetherness. If you happen to spend Christmas at Burger King trading Pokemon cards with yourself, you feel like a failure.

We all like to have precious moments, and I’m not just talking about those adorable little figures we all collect. I’m talking about this universal Donna Reed lifestyle that’s ingrained in our heads.

There are certain events in our lives that are supposed to be monumental. Take the Prom for instance. As if High School isn’t stressful enough for most kids, come the end of it all they’re expected to have some romantic, life-affirming, John Hughes experience at some dance.

But for how many people was Prom Night anything magical? Kids spend hundreds of dollars on clothes, dinners, limousines and everything else, but for what? To wind up in the school gym with a bunch of fake palm trees listening to “Whomp (There it is)?”

Not to mention people who didn’t have anyone to go with. Stay home on Prom Night and you’re left to wonder, did I miss out? Probably not. The “Stairway to Heaven” is never as wonderful as the Prom committee suggests it to be.

For all the ridiculous pageantry of Prom Night, it is just a warm-up for the Wedding.

With the exception of the staff of Walt Disney World, no one works harder to make sure that everything is perfect than people having a wedding. Just watching the process can be exhausting, let alone actually going through it.

Flowers, pictures, decorations, seating arrangements, color schemes, catering, DJ’s, tuxedo rentals, limousines, rings, reception hall, invitations, guest lists; all must be just perfect in order for the bride and groom to exchange vows.

But will the feelings those two people have really be affected that much if the centerpieces are chartreuse instead of mint?

I was actually involved in a wedding where the bride’s mother commented that “We don’t want any children involved in this wedding, because I’ve seen too many weddings messed up by little kids.”

To which I replied “Why don’t you go back to the north pole, you hell-spawned ice queen.”

Okay, I actually didn’t, but probably only because I was also afraid to do anything to mess with the event.

Most of us, I hope, are lucky enough to have a few really special moments in our lives. They may be times we become incredibly close to another person, or even just times we realize something amazing on our own.

While it’s important that we keep the channel open so these moments can occur, we can never plan them, and they rarely occur at the times society suggests they might.

It’s hard to escape the expectations of society. It’s natural for us to look at others and wonder why we’re not the same, especially when we’re unhappy.

But we should be careful not to let fairy tale ideals of how everyone’s life should be make us feel any less content if ours are not that way.

So what if you ring in the new millennium watching “The Flamingo Kid” on TBS. After watching NBC’s stunning “Y2K: The Movie,” I think it might be best to stay indoors anyway.

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Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames.