Year of the Dragon could bring prosperity, but only if you lead with kindness
It’s the Year of the Dragon, and people can expect a lot of good fortune — but only if they’re harnessing the animal’s most important quality.
It’s the Year of the Dragon, and people can expect a lot of good fortune — but only if they’re harnessing the animal’s most important quality: compassion.
Lunar New Year — which includes Chinese New Year, Seollal in Korea, Tet in Vietnam and more — will begin Feb. 10, kicking off more than two weeks of festivities, customs and plenty of feasts. It celebrates the arrival of spring and the start of a fresh year based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar.
The upcoming year’s dragon sign is perhaps the most popular zodiac creature, associated with a host of positive qualities such as nobility, wealth and wisdom.
The year’s dragon sign is, more specifically, a wood dragon. The element of wood is seen in Daoist tradition as a return to the natural state of being, which in the dragon’s case, points to a return to kindness. And Confucian thought interprets wood as a symbol of unlimited potential.
“I’m seeing this wood Dragon year as a year of unlimited potential in terms of prosperity. Long-term, it could also be the year in which major conflict can be resolved, if people can focus on empathy,” said Jonathan H. X. Lee, a professor of Chinese folklore and religion at San Francisco State University. “If we continue our tribal thinking and selfish thinking, we’re not going to achieve it.”
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