Merry Christmas

Friday, December 25, 2020 at 2:43am

For all the challenges and hardship of the past year, even despite all the challenges that remain in the year to come, I remain a perpetual optimist. I am surrounded by good friends and colleagues who are with me in spirit, even when we cannot spend time together physically in the same place. My love of books and literature keeps me tied to human culture, and attuned to the inevitable periods of recovery and renewal that tend to follow in the wake of disaster. With the success of vaccines trials, their approval, and their roll-out lighting up the pages of our news apps, we have every reason to believe that renewal is only a matter of time.

If there is anything good that has come out of this year, it is that I now understand that I have been putting off certain things, telling myself that I don’t need to do them now, or that it would be too much of an investment, or that it’s not worth getting burned if I don’t do well. The reality of lockdown, during which those activities are impossible, has demonstrated starkly the folly of such thinking. There is no time but now.

Wherever you are, and whatever it is you’ve most missed out on this past year, my Christmas wish is that by this time next year, you are able to that thing again, whatever it is that gives your life the most meaning and a sense of fulfillment.

In the general holiday spirit, Merry Christmas, everyone. Let’s make 2021 the year we came back stronger than ever.