To a Better 2021!

 Attitudes are contagious, are you worth catching?

Dennis and Wendy Mannering.

Happy New Year!
From half-banana critters
At the end of a half-banana year

‘2020 – THE YEAR THAT TOOK YEARS’, and indeed, it felt more like a decade than merely 366 days!  

Following are my fragmented rambling thoughts, fairly representative of how this year progressed, a tentative and disorganized stream of reflections mirroring 2020 with its fits and starts.  

Regardless of the downsides of this ‘last, lost’ year, the global pandemic has given us a rare window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, reconsider, and reset our values, prioritizations, worldviews, etc.  What is more important?  Sport or science?  Celebrities or nurses/doctors?  Unbridled growth or nature?  Elaborate hairdo or friendships? Fancy new vehicle or food? Good education or conspiracies? Vacation over family safety?  Time at work or time with the kids? 

Recognizing what one doesn’t need can sometimes be more powerful than knowing what one does need.  Retune, rethink.  

However, opportunity for deep reevaluation isn’t much of an option for folks losing their housing, utilities, food, job, business, future, etc.  Difficult, at best, if you also have to take care of other family members with schooling, health issues, and/or live in very tight quarters with no yard nor nearby park, no personal space to think, plan, grow.  Parental/familial burnout crisis is high.  Nerves fraying.  These constant stressors seemingly taking away our identity, our own self.  How do we cope better? 

By definition, a rollercoaster is a ride of both fear and excitement, but it also correlates with experiences of fierce ups and downs, fluctuations between affluence and downturn, excitement and hopelessness, and abrupt or unpredictable changes. In a nutshell that’s how 2020 felt.  Not only because of the coronavirus but mostly the constant and unhealthy cacophony of dumbness, political, religious, or otherwise, seen in this country. Where do we possibly go from here?  

Whiplashes from the sudden turns of events struck hard, leaving many feeling unmoored.  We are being jolted into the present and that can, sometimes, be extremely unsettling.  We have lost many of the distractions that normally help us forget or distance ourselves from learning needed lessons, sensing our true selves, growing.  

Our whole world is in a collective state of trauma that will take years to tame.  Resilience will be important in the months/years to come.  Our ability to positively reframe extremely difficult situations into constructive ones, will be a life saver.  Being gracious and kind to others more crucial than ever, albeit more difficult.  What, other than fear, do we have in common anymore? 

Social support is very important to help buffer the many effects of disasters and adversities, yet during this pandemic, because of physical distancing, we are robbed of that central social support, making it extra-challenging.  What about our identity?  Countless do not know who they’ve become.  By losing their social context, many feel like they have lost everything.  How do we safely get anchored and connected again? 

Words don’t teach us anything, but life does.  2020 has been a fountain of life lessons and most of them have left us feeling emotionally raw while reminding us that life is very precious, yet startling, and that it can change, oh so quickly and unpredictably. 

I try to find unusual and interesting ways of dealing with challenges, try to think outside the box, giving myself new challenges, new learning experiences, new growth opportunities.  May you be able to do so as well, for your own sanity and development.    

In the end, I leave you with these few quotes which describe parts of 2020 quite well….  May we all experience a better 2021.  Thank you for your continued friendship and support.  Cheers to all. 

About masks:

How quickly we have learned to read sorrow and delight and the quieter flavors like shame 

from two marbles rolling like fish in the middle of what used to be a face. 

Unknown 

Worry is like a rocking chair: 

It gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere. 

Erma Bombeck. 

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.

Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

Marie Curie 

Often when you think you're at the end of something,

you're at the beginning of something else.

Fred Rogers

'I don't want things, I want moments'
Difficult to do/have during this pandemic, but so important

By Chris Pacheco