How to greet 2022? With hope? Optimism? Gloom and doom? Pessimism? All of the above!
Call it the great conundrum of this New Year: How to greet 2022?
With hope? With optimism? With more gloom and doom? With pessimism? With fear? With dread? With depression? With a new load of worries? With an attack of nerves? With uncertainty? With skepticism? With concern for our survival as a nation and world?
Try all of the above --- and a lot more! There are plenty of reasons that justify each of the above feelings.
As the ball dropped past midnight on the East Coast last night/early this morning, I felt all of the above emotions, although caution and dread led them all.
After being fooled into thinking that 2021 would be better and mean the end of this never-ending coronavirus pandemic, I've learned to be skeptical about feeling too hopeful. Instead, I entered the year with a simple, but utterly pragmatic, wish: "I hope that things won't get even worse in 2022 than they were the last two years," I told my wife moments after watching the ball drop on TV while sipping a non-alcoholic bubbly beverage.
Given the high number of unvaccinated Americans and the still extremely low vaccination numbers in many foreign countries, that practical approach to 2022 wishes seems to be the most prudent one to take.
But it's not just the unvaccinated millions in the United States who are helping to make this pandemic a permanent condition of American and global life; it's the fact that no one --- not even the most knowledgeable experts --- really have a definitive clue about how this ever-mutating virus will act and react.
When you look back at all the false starts and stops over the past two years, the so-called experts have just been giving us their best estimate. How else to explain all the contradictory information about the virus and how to defeat it that we've seen?
That contradictory information has been most recently on display with the experts' explanation of the Omicron variant. Its threat was at first downplayed, and now far too many unfeeling experts are either recommending or demanding the closing of parts of society, such as restaurants --- with little regard, it seems, that such calls would finish off many of the smaller businesses that made it through the first wave of the pandemic.
Then there's the bumbling that the government continues to display. Look no further than Massachusetts, which waited until days before the New Year's holiday to announce the release of 200,000 at-home test kits so students and staff could be tested before going back to school, only to backtrack because --- to no one's surprise --- the delivery, like everyone else, was delayed. So there's almost no way that the tests will get to the people they were intended before Monday's opening --- and yet state officials' response to the delay was to dig in their heels and refuse to delay the opening.
And the list goes on and an on as we continue to move backwards. There have been for example, renewed calls in some quarters for a return to remote learning, many colleges have announced plans to at least start the winter-spring semester in a virtual setting and many other aspects of American life seem to be reverting to an online existence with no regard for how much such a move would further scar and harm the psyches of all the people affected.
But the main reason why we as a nation and people are still reeling from the pandemic, and at this point have little hope of ever getting rid of it, is that we've never faced this pandemic as a united people; instead we've become more divided than ever.
The result is that hatred is on the rise as never before, and people would just as soon wish people of differing views dead (not metaphorically, but for real), than reach out and have a civil discussion.
So how can any rational human being have any hope for this country and our people in the face of all this anger?
Easy: Ignore the noise and reach out to others.
With hope? With optimism? With more gloom and doom? With pessimism? With fear? With dread? With depression? With a new load of worries? With an attack of nerves? With uncertainty? With skepticism? With concern for our survival as a nation and world?
Try all of the above --- and a lot more! There are plenty of reasons that justify each of the above feelings.
As the ball dropped past midnight on the East Coast last night/early this morning, I felt all of the above emotions, although caution and dread led them all.
After being fooled into thinking that 2021 would be better and mean the end of this never-ending coronavirus pandemic, I've learned to be skeptical about feeling too hopeful. Instead, I entered the year with a simple, but utterly pragmatic, wish: "I hope that things won't get even worse in 2022 than they were the last two years," I told my wife moments after watching the ball drop on TV while sipping a non-alcoholic bubbly beverage.
Given the high number of unvaccinated Americans and the still extremely low vaccination numbers in many foreign countries, that practical approach to 2022 wishes seems to be the most prudent one to take.
But it's not just the unvaccinated millions in the United States who are helping to make this pandemic a permanent condition of American and global life; it's the fact that no one --- not even the most knowledgeable experts --- really have a definitive clue about how this ever-mutating virus will act and react.
When you look back at all the false starts and stops over the past two years, the so-called experts have just been giving us their best estimate. How else to explain all the contradictory information about the virus and how to defeat it that we've seen?
That contradictory information has been most recently on display with the experts' explanation of the Omicron variant. Its threat was at first downplayed, and now far too many unfeeling experts are either recommending or demanding the closing of parts of society, such as restaurants --- with little regard, it seems, that such calls would finish off many of the smaller businesses that made it through the first wave of the pandemic.
Then there's the bumbling that the government continues to display. Look no further than Massachusetts, which waited until days before the New Year's holiday to announce the release of 200,000 at-home test kits so students and staff could be tested before going back to school, only to backtrack because --- to no one's surprise --- the delivery, like everyone else, was delayed. So there's almost no way that the tests will get to the people they were intended before Monday's opening --- and yet state officials' response to the delay was to dig in their heels and refuse to delay the opening.
And the list goes on and an on as we continue to move backwards. There have been for example, renewed calls in some quarters for a return to remote learning, many colleges have announced plans to at least start the winter-spring semester in a virtual setting and many other aspects of American life seem to be reverting to an online existence with no regard for how much such a move would further scar and harm the psyches of all the people affected.
But the main reason why we as a nation and people are still reeling from the pandemic, and at this point have little hope of ever getting rid of it, is that we've never faced this pandemic as a united people; instead we've become more divided than ever.
The result is that hatred is on the rise as never before, and people would just as soon wish people of differing views dead (not metaphorically, but for real), than reach out and have a civil discussion.
So how can any rational human being have any hope for this country and our people in the face of all this anger?
Easy: Ignore the noise and reach out to others.
I recently got an unexpected boost to my doldrums when some members of a neighborhood church took it among themselves to --- out of the blue --- write a congratulatory note to me for winning an award for my two-plus decades of volunteering with the Relay For Life fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. I was so touched by their kindness that I wrote them a thank-you note, because in this day and age, simple acts of kindness are rare, and should be thanked in writing --- the old-fashioned way, with a hand-written card.
Thankfully for us, there are still kind people in our midst --- and that's why I have at least a scintilla of hope that 2022 will eventually get us back to the unbridled optimism that we felt in May, June, July and August before the pandemic took us to a dark place all over again.
Only time will tell whether even that little bit of hope has been misplaced.
Thankfully for us, there are still kind people in our midst --- and that's why I have at least a scintilla of hope that 2022 will eventually get us back to the unbridled optimism that we felt in May, June, July and August before the pandemic took us to a dark place all over again.
Only time will tell whether even that little bit of hope has been misplaced.
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