Finding hope in our shared goals and our humanity

Heaven knows it’s easy enough – and particularly through the fug of New Year’s Day hangover, after a late night – to become despondent about the situation we find ourselves in.

It turns out lockdown is not as fun the second time round. Memories of a beautifully warm April seem very distant now, compared to our current wet and cold experience of shops being closed. The November lockdown passed without note – we didn’t share pictures of home baking or haircuts – and now tier four stretches ahead of us, even as the statistics bring grim reading.

So it may seem slightly incongruous to try to emphasis the positive; that may feel like it is a ritual for other New Year’s Days, not for this one.

But we must look forward with optimism. We must take heart from the development and the roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine; a move that will help us return to normal. We must look back at the last 12 months and acknowledge that yes, there has been great personal grief, serious illness – which in the case of long Covid is not yet fully understood – and present and future economic woe, but there has also been great strength to admire.

We have looked out for one another, we have fed each other, we have checked on each other and we have entertained each other. We have fundraised for others, and on the whole we have abided by rules, some heartbreakingly strict over Christmas, for the greater good.

That sense of shared purpose is something that we must capitalise on. In an atomised world where too many people are content to spout bile from an anonymous social media profile, we must not lose our common ground, and our common goal. It’s telling that so many people to whom we speak to mention the sense of community as the thing that gives them hope, and keeps them going. Let us all bear that in mind as we start the new year.