2022: Lets Try This One More Time

As we look forward into another year, we look back on 2021.  I couldn't help but notice on social media that a lot of people have a very bleak outlook when it comes to the new year--2022!  That's understandable considering the last couple years have been so difficult in so many ways. We've had challenges with money.  We've had challenges with our jobs.  We've had challenges with our kids.  We're angry with our leaders.  We are disappointed with what we've been able to do. We may have lost people we love.  And we've been frightened--frightened of the unknown. 

Perhaps I'm seeing this the wrong way, but aren't these things we deal with every year?  We face challenges every year.  We're tested every year.  We have some good days and bad days every year.  We lose people we love every year.  I've never had a year in my 50 years that has been all good, or all bad.  It's always been some good things and some bad things.  That's life.  

What's changed is the way we see things.  We only seem to focus on the negative.  We seem to be obsessed with the idea that something is going to sneak up on us and kill us.  And we're right!  Something will sneak up on us and kill us eventually.  It's inevitable. 

I see so many people in a holding pattern.  They are waiting for life to return to normal.  But what if it doesn't?  Are you willing to keep living the way you've been living if life doesn't get back to the way you knew it in 2019?

When I was a kid, we'd hear the tornado siren go off, and we'd all race down to the basement until the storm passed.  After the storm was gone, we'd listen closely for the "all clear" siren to be sounded, and then we'd come up and resume with what we'd been doing as if nothing had happened.  We were used to tornadoes.  We understood the potential dangers and took action when we needed to.

I'm reminded of this often.  That's what life has felt like to me the last couple years.  Like we're in the cellar waiting for the storm to pass so we can resume our life again.  We're waiting for an "all clear" siren that may never sound while life goes on without us.

When the COVID tornado hit, my family didn't stay in the cellar very long.  We came up and looked around, and decided there was minimum danger to us and we continued on with our life.  We did all the things we needed to do to stay as safe as we could and to ensure the safety of those around us, but our life went on.  We knew we could always go back into the cellar if another storm came along.  Just like we got used to tornadoes in the Midwest, we got used to COVID. 

Do the right things to protect yourselves and protect your families, but live your lives.  You only get one.  Adjust and adapt your life so that you can continue to live it even the way things are right now.

Bloom where you're planted.  Happy New Year!

~Todd E. Creason