Good morning. There’s a thousand directions this little "Happy New Year" missive could go in, and I’ve already deleted 3 wildly varying lead-lines so far.
I’m feeling a little directionless - overwhelmed, really - as 2021 ends and 2022 starts, with or without me.
A trying year closes. On the heels of a trying year. And we dive headfirst into...another trying year.
People are tired.
I pushed myself to stay up last night, like I did last year, to usher in the stroke of midnight. From Times Square, I watched Ryan Seacrest and the ancillary countdown hosts play a tightly choreographed game of “BACK TO YOU” hot potato, trying to deflect attention from a noticeably spartan, subdued NYE crowd of revelers and hype extras.
You get the feeling that the the ball dropped merely because it was New Years Eve, not because people were particularly ready for the start of another one.
‘Dropping the ball' metaphors notwithstanding, it’s a struggle for me to find a starting point today.
There’s a lot of things I want…a lot of things that are hard for me to hold on to...a lot of things that are difficult to let go of. I’ve spent many a New Years Day making those lists, setting those goals, creating those action plans. I’ve watched the days run together and away from me like a freight train carrying it’s cargo off to some other place. I’ve missed many, many goals by a mile.
Ah. But I’ve also acquired a nifty grab bag of things I have accomplished! And, I am equally disciplined at pulling each one of them out to notice all their nicks, dings, scratches, flaws.
Why do we beat ourselves up? There are so many people out there willing to do that for you.
Staying positive truly is a choice in the worst of times. And for someone that wants to make things Just-So, the struggle to stay positive is real. Making yourself Thankful becomes a real goal. A real To Do, a real habit. Being thankful is the best defense against an overwhelming sense that things aren’t going your way, or that the universe is indifferent to your mood, or an overwhelming feeling that forces may just be plain against you.
For me, if ever there has been a year for mustering up some proactive Thanks, it’s been 2021. I want to contribute my pots and pans and pantyhose to the war effort and win. I want to move through the target.
This time last year, with 2020 in our face so much, 2021 felt fresh, and we were eager for things to ‘return to normal’. It’s been a long year of New Normal, and we will see more of that in 2022.
But...we want these January 1sts to mean something, to signify a fresh start and for the year to deliver that to us. We have ambitions, and this is how the year should go. Right? Meanwhile, ignoring the reality that each ‘water tight’ day offers the same opportunity. If anyone is guilty of trading in those days in favor of an annual ceremony, it’s me.
It takes a lot of energy to navigate life/work through the new routines; to parse and glean the useful information; to understand tomorrow will probably be very different from today, for good or for bad. It takes energy to keep all the balls from dropping. You can go to bed tired yet energized that you've put your heart and guts into something you value, only to awake with one of those “SHAME ON YOU!!” messages sitting like a cancer in your inbox or feed, for whatever current thing you said, did or expressed.
So, “THANKFUL" , is going to have to be my fortifying buzzword this year.
It needs to be. There’s just too many forces to blow my house down.
I must remain Thankful this year.
It’s the daily mortar.
- Barry
