It's The Year 2000 and I'm Still Alive!

First of all, I, like everyone else, know that January 1, 2000 does not mark the start of the third millennium A.D.  The Christian calendar passed from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. without a year 0, therefore the real beginning of the 21st century comes on January 1, 2001.  For all intents and purposes though, I will consider that we have begun the new millennium since that is what 99% of the world believes (well, Christian world anyway) and there isn't much to say here without first assuming that fact.
  I have always detested the symbolism we place in numbers.  So what that we won't write 19somethingsomething in dates any more, how does that profoundly affect my life?  I couldn't believe how millennium madness swept the globe, and originally was absolutely repulsed by it, but now I'll retract that somewhat and say that there were definitely some positive effects of the four-digit swap.
  On New Year's Eve before I began my own festivities I watched quite a bit of millennium coverage on CNN as January 1, 2000 began in New Zealand and slowly worked its way westward.  The celebrations I saw, even from non-Christian countries who were not really recognizing a millennium according to their cultures such as China, Thailand, and India, were truly inspiring.  Millions upon millons of people gathered in dozens of countries in merryment and revelry without a single major incident. There were no terrorist attacks in the Middle East, Europe, or Times Square where 2 million people watched the ball fall.  That is truly amazing.  One billion Indians rejoiced as hijackers released 150 hostages in Afghanistan.  Boris Yeltsin finally realized that he's too old for his job and selected a well-abled successor with which the West should be able to cooperate.  The turn of the millennium brought the world together just as effectively if not more so than the Olympics.
  Of course, one must mention Y2K, the computer bug that failed to bring the Apocalypse upon us.  I for one was not worried, and had no preparations for it whatsoever.  The world will never know if Y2K was just highly overblown or if the extensive operation to fix it eventually did so.  I would like to think the latter, and small problems that are slowly emerging due to Y2K show that it could have been much worse.  All the cults and others huddling in bunkers because Y2K would signal Armageddon were, surprise, wrong.  Still, there were no mass suicides, and that in itself is worthy of mention; perhaps fanatics are finally realizing that hey, it's just a date (in the year 1000 there were mass suicides across the known world). Y2K also brought the world together as governments and corporations around the world cooperated in exterminating the bug.  That is a rather positive side effect, let's hope it can continue.
  I still believe we are too symbolistic of a society, but I now realize that dates can be important.  In such an abstract concept of time, the turn of the millennium gives us lowly humans the chance to re-examine where we have been and where we are going.  Just so we realize there are no quick fixes; I hope no one expected that a cure for cancer would be discovered on New Year's Day or something.  I do have hope for the future; however, as mankind and womankind continue on their journey through time.