I have one resolution for 2021 — persevere
The new year is a time for optimism and goal-setting, an opportunity to move past old failures toward a fresh beginning. The resolutions we make, even those doomed to failure, represent an earnest attempt to make ourselves, and therefore the world around us, a better place. Plus, who couldn’t stand to lose 20 pounds?
So as we head into 2021, I say with all sincerity … screw that. My “resolution” for the year is simply this: don’t allow my current state of frustration and pessimism to completely derail my physical, mental and emotional well-being. That’s it. That’s the list.
The year 2020 was consistently, undeniably, unrelentingly awful in so many ways. What was shaping up to be a tremendously exciting 12 months for me personally — I took a buyout from my job to do some bucket list things — got smashed to bits by the pandemic. But worse than that, 2020 further diminished my faith in humanity.
Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, I had always hoped that a global crisis that threatened us all would be successfully countered by our better nature. Someway, somehow, we would join together as a community, as a society, as citizens of the world to work together for the betterment of all.
And to be fair, many people did. Everyone from front-line health care workers to grocery store employees put their lives on the line. Scientific researchers came together to create a vaccine in record time. Even the simple act of wearing a mask and following public health guidelines represented the willingness to do your part.
But so many people have used the pandemic to put their individual interests ahead of those of the larger community, to make vapid, moronic statements about the importance of personal freedom as if wearing a mask or not going to the bar was some tyrannical imposition. Government responses, while initially earnest and science-based, have devolved into the usual politics of bickering and in competence. Nine months into this thing and it feels like we’ve learned nothing.
The pandemic has killed so many people it’s impossible not to see that as the greatest tragedy but how we’ve responded as a society is, to me, almost as horrifying. We all play a role in building and maintaining the culture we live in and therefore all bear the responsibility for what we’ve done (or not done) in the face of this challenge.
With COVID cases running wild and a new lockdown upon us, 2021 doesn’t represent a fresh start or a sense of renewal but simply a continuation of the same 2020 grind. If we are lucky, things will be better by the spring and maybe the summer will be fine. Perhaps we’ll all be vaccinated by the fall. But if 2020 taught us anything, it’s not to get your hopes up.
So that’s my resolution: to persevere. To keep wearing my mask and following the rules and not to think too much about what I’ve lost, the things I’ve missed and the things I’ll still have to sacrifice. Be strong, do my part, find joy where I can. The idea that losing 20 pounds might somehow be important considering all that seems ludicrous.
Happy New Year, everyone. Hope you are OK.