A New Year Begins

I believe I have mentioned this before, but my brother and I have a superstition that how your New Year's Eve goes in an indicator to how your year might play out.  Funny thing, the person who introduced us to that superstition proposed to his girlfriend this New Year's Eve, so I would say he is off to a wonderful start (love you, Cuz!).  Well, this year, Andy and I had some us time where we played Civilization V and watching Grand Tour on Amazon Prime.  Not sure what that's going to mean for us, but it seems more promising than otherwise.

Around 11, we watched the EST ball drop.  Andy turned to me and said that his gut feeling that this was not going to be a good year, that is was going to be overall positive for us but not a good one for the rest of the world.  I cannot be completely sure where this portence stems, but I suspect more that it is a compilation of many things. 

Here's part of the truth, at least--the keys to the bunkers will be changing hands.  What I mean by that is that persons have been saying that the previous administration was the end of the world are emerging from hiding and the previously optimistic are now seeing signs of the end times.  

And this comes back again to this whole empathy thing.  There have been MILLIONS of people that feel their voice has not been heard.  They have been labeled as all kinds of things by "liberal elites" or "backwards conservatives" alike.  Irrelevant, for starters.  Our voices, regardless of which side of the fence we land, have felt ignored.  And we have collectively demonized the "other" side.  Some parts of our country have only known fear, for judgement against who they are or who they love, and now have that fear amplified.  Others don't care how things change as long as they change somehow.  Others still don't really care about the world because what is right in front of them is barely holding together.  Some walk through the world certain that they deserve every good thing that good fortune doles out and, worse so, begin to feel that those without that good fortune must deserve it.  

We have lost sight of the real enemy, at least in part because we have lost sight of each others' humanity. 

Pull back from the problem and all of the distracting labels that we throw in there.  We are all part of this world.  We have nothing but opportunity at this point to make changes.  I have mentioned my disdain before about New Year's Resolutions because I feel that any time is a good time to make a positive change for yourself, but as you consider this year, what things can you do to make even your small part of the world better?  Where can you show kindness (even to yourself)?  Or if you're going to be part of some bigger change, work toward that goal with confidence.

We're all in this together.