Where Will The Year Take Us?

Soon we will begin year three of living with Covid-19. Virus variants are leading some health experts to predict our lives will remain in a state of limbo at least until 2024 as we restrict ourselves in an attempt to control the spread of the disease.

If you began the Covid age like me, asking yourself, “how long can this last,” you now have the best answer available to us: At least another two years. We do not know how we will adjust to the evolution of the virus or whether things will get easier or harder, but it appears what we used to imagine as a return to normal life is far off. Some people believe there will never be a return to old normal.

Despite the gloomy forecast, this is the start of a new year and as with any such turning point on the calendar, there is reason for hope. It is up to each of us to define that hope on our own.

We all live with different, unique circumstances and I can only speak for myself. As I look ahead to another two years of Covid disrupting any plans I had for my own life, and watch life’s finish line draw closer with each passing year, it is not difficult for me to conclude(again, speaking only for myself) that I have little to lose. If there is a chance or an opportunity that presents itself, I should take it. As 2022 gets underway, that is my mindset.

There are signs that many others feel the same way. Have you noticed the number of people who have decided to quit their jobs in the last year? Have you noticed the number of people starting their own businesses? Have you noticed people moving or fundamentally changing their lives? If nothing else, the pandemic has shown us all that we are never in control of life. We live with the illusion of control, because it helps us cope. This is not pessimism, it is reality. Plain truth.

It is always easier to advocate in favor of taking chances and less easy to actually take them. As human beings we are wired, and often raised, to be careful and conservative. Do the safe thing. That is our default setting.

At times I feel as if I have spent a lifetime saying “no” when I should have been saying “sure, why not.” Having said that, many people have told me they have always seen me as a risk taker. For me this says more about their unease with taking risks than it does about my own gambles. Knowing the full list of chances I have refused to take helps me place myself pretty high on the risk averse scale.

In 2022, that is going to change. That’s what I am thinking as I write this note to you(and to myself) just before Christmas 2021. I will never toss all caution aside, but I do intend to push the edges from now on. I have a list of things to do in the year ahead and I intend to get them done. These things will lead to other things that have yet to enter my mind or field of view. That’s where my hope comes from.

Travel is one of those things I have to find a way to resume. As Covid was breaking out across the globe I was just completing my first around the world trip. A trip most people do in their 20s, before they enter the working world. A trip I got the idea and the courage for in my 50s. Since my return, I have been trying to find ways to continue the adventure, but travel restrictions have limited my choices.

This summer, I plan to hit the road again. I have four possible routes planned and which one I finally take, will depend a lot on the state of the pandemic. It’s possible none of the four trips I have sketched out will work. If that is the case, I’ll have to come up with a fifth. And that, in the end, is the point. We have to take our hope where we can find it. We have to take opportunities as they present themselves, we can’t risk standing still while we wait for the perfect opportunity. It may never come.

It is always dangerous to think that matters can’t get any worse than they are. If you believe at all in tempting fate, then it is never good to give fate that chance to prove us wrong. Nevertheless, after living through months of complete global shutdown, followed by over a year of sporadic, partial shutdowns, what more can life throw at us that we cannot handle? I say, not much and therein lies the hope I cling to as 2022 opens its door to us.