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In less than 48 hours we will close the door on 2020. A new year awaits us, and with it new challenges. Once again, just like clockwork, here comes New Year’s Day.
2020 started innocently enough, as most new years do. When the clock struck midnight last New Year’s Eve, none of us imagined the chaos that the COVID-19 virus would bring into our lives. It has affected how we live our lives – virtual school, on-line church services, face masks when we go to the grocery store or Wal-Mart, and drive-thru meals, just to mention a few of the changes in our lives.
Some of us have been looking forward to 2021 since about mid-March. We want our lives to return to normal. Or whatever “normal” will become in the wake of this pandemic.
The coronavirus has definitely presented challenges for state and local health officials, who have been trying to balance the need for safety against people’s individual freedoms and the health of the economy.
Hopefullly, the distribution of vaccines present hope that COVID-19 will be contained soon, but we’re not quite there yet. As a result, 2021 will begin much as 2020 has ended. School districts will continue to grapple with how to have classes and the most effective ways to reduce COVID-19’s spread. We will continue to wear masks, and when the opportunity presents itself, we will get a vaccination.
We can only hope the past few months have been a learning experience for all of us, and that we will be more nimble and efficient in dealing not only with this public health issue, but any others that may follow it.
The world didn’t stop when the virus hit, although it may have felt that way some days. And some of the issues that have been prominent this year are likely to remain so in 2021. It’s impossible to anticipate everything the next 12 months have in store for us, just as it was impossible to anticipate how this year was going to unfold.
As tough as it’s been, we made it through 2020. And that feat alone is significant.
The new year begins as an empty slate with nothing but a sense of incalculable possibilities and hope. As Henry Ward Beecher wrote in 1882, “Every man should be born again on the first of January.”
But the year will soon be filled with activities, promises and commitments, pleasures and disappointments, work, play, friends and family members. We predict it will be a busy one.
A new calendar can be just as powerful a motivating force as a new job, a new relationship, a new home.
It can also be a good time to break with harmful patterns of the past; to release grudges and forgive; to say “Enough of that” and move on.
As we move into the new year, let’s try to be safety conscious, considerate of our neighbors, and willing to pull together and make personal sacrifices for the greater good.
After all, 2021 is almost here. And whatever the year holds, we’ll all be in it together.