2021: The Year of the Do-Better, not the Do-Over

I‘ll be riding all 365 days of 2021 like jockey on horse trying to win the Kentucky Derby—and you should, too.

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

Pity that time moves in only one direction. There are many moments in my life I wish I could relive, but with the knowledge I have now. Exhibit A: my first term in college and the five-hour Beginning French class which met every day at 8:00 a.m. Because I had several years of French under my belt before college, the elective was supposed to be an easy A. But when registering for the class I didn’t take into consideration that I lived on the vampire sleep schedule—turning in around 3:00 a.m., and up at 9:00 a.m. The class wound up being a five-hour F. What can I say? Living the wild life and partying kinda got in the way.

2020 stole, killed, and destroyed so much for so many, and left utter devastation in its wake. For many of us, Covid’s exacerbating circumstances far exceeded our control, let alone our grasp. If you’re like me, you tried to make sense of it all, remain focused and productive; but even still . . . there was the feeling that I should have done more. Hopefully, others might say I was better than I hoped and not as bad as I thought. Reality might disagree.

But let’s not be delusional here. The last twelve months have been a banner year for bigotry, racism, and hatred. A lot of bad stuff has gone down that had nothing to do with Covid and everything to do with intentionally malevolent acts perpetrated against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and too many white people taking refuge in their fortress of indifference. It doesn’t affect me so why should I care?

I don’t want a “do-over” of 2020. I don’t know about you, but I lived a decade in the last 366 days and that was enough to last me a lifetime. I hate should-ing on people but . . . if you don’t want social injustice, racism, bigotry, sexism, and all that nonsense, there’s no way anyone in their right mind can return to the pre-2020 normal. That’s the thinking that got us into this dumpster fire in the first place.

Don’t show me anything in 2021 that’s a do-over of something from 2020. The last thing I want nastying up my pristine new year is some refuse from a still blazing 365-day-long…