Christmas a time to look back, look forward

It’s also a good moment to realize how noise gets in the way of the messages

One of the fascinations of Christmas is how it becomes a milestone along the journey of life. When friends and families gather every year, we are reminded of what has passed and the coming changes that will shape our future.

For every person who has departed since last year — from moving addresses to permanently passing on — we are reminded of loss. At the same time, our optimism for the future is affirmed in the hope and potential of every newly arrived child or new friend in our lives.

Christmas is also a benchmark of what has changed during the past year; what’s improved, fallen behind or continues to be steadily kept on course.

For all its retail frenzy, festivities and frantic rush, Christmas’s underlying Christian values endure: a celebration of love, generosity, charity, togetherness and rejoicing in the spirit of the birth of Christ. And in giving we are often reminded of the importance of gratitude for what we have.

A Harvard Medical School essay a few years ago pointed out how gratitude helps us refocus on what we have, instead of what we lack.

The article stated “by acknowledging the goodness in their lives, expressing gratitude often helps people recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves, which can connect them to something larger — other people, nature, or a higher power.”

Putting our lives in perspective also reminds us that we live in one of the safest and most naturally endowed places on Earth, terrific cities and towns — cold, maybe, but with an incomparable standard of living and amenities.

It’s also a good time to think about the Signal-to-noise Ratio — not so much as the scientific measure of signal strength relative to background noise but in the sense of our lives and how noise gets in the way of messages we are trying to receive.

The modern world bombards us with information and endless clutter. We have never encountered more noise trying to overwhelm the important messages. Part of rationing our information intake and decoding what matters is to distinguish the noise from the signal and knowing what to have less and more of in our lives.

Christmas is also a time to reflect on the changes in our world in the past 12 months. A year ago, beyond Saskatchewan peoples’ knowledge of the City of Humboldt, most of Canada and the world had never heard of the place until a bus crash in early spring. Resilience through a time of tragedy endures.

As the year ends, the energy sector which is so important to the prairie west has been hammered by a deliberate government policy that has stranded oil from pipelines. The result — Western Canada oil prices at under $12 a barrel while Texas and foreign oil sold for six times that — is without precedent.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s strong approval rates have come to earth as a year-end Angus Reid Institute poll has his overall rating at -23. Of the 58 per cent who disapprove of Trudeau, 39 per cent say they do so strongly. For the first time, this poll lists Trudeau trailing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer as preferred choice for PM.

In a year’s time, Mr. Trudeau will either have been an embarrassing oneterm footnote — as he’s generally regarded around here — or will be starting a second term in office, buoyed by supportive voters in Central Canada and B.C.

As the sun sets on 2018, political discontent and alienation echo like drums in the distance, not heard in decades since an earlier prime minister named Trudeau ravaged the energy sector in the early 1980s. Whether passing or permanent, Western frustration continues.

We will learn in the next 12 months whether this is signal or noise. Gormley is a broadcaster, lawyer, author and former Progressive Conservative MP whose radio talk show is heard weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on 980 CJME Regina and 650 CKOM Saskatoon.