Make It A Happy New Year, America

Face the New Year with strength, dignity, and hope, do not succumb to the voices of gloom and doom. We’re Americans; it’s time we begin to act like it again.

What are your expectations for the New Year, 2022? Are you the optimist, and believe that hope springs eternal, and that better days are ahead, or have you been beaten down and brutalized by an invisible, unrelenting enemy? The American people have lived through almost two years of hell, brought on by confusion, uncertainty, sickness, and death. Is there any among us who can still see a light at the end of the tunnel?   

The people have had to rely on government, science, and the experts, and have been confused and disappointed, many having suffered great loss, anguish, and hardship. The pandemic, aside from the victims it has claimed, has wrought for many an added burden; mental and emotional fear and frustration that is the result of having to significantly alter one’s lifestyle, without a return to “normal.” Even children could not escape the ineptitude and callous disregard by those in power that they rely on to secure their safety and protection from the virus, and protect their mental well-being. Parents have also had to go through life-altering change that threatened their employment in the workplace. 

When it all began in January of 2020, we and the rest of the world were caught off guard. This was something we could never have imagined would happen. The Trump administration began holding daily briefings, explaining to the people what was expected of them to control the outbreak. Eventually schools and businesses closed their doors, students and office workers began handling their lessons and responsibilities online from their homes, and even houses of worship had to cease their services. 

The days stretched into weeks, then months, and now we’re coming on two years. In that time hundreds of thousands succumbed to the deadly virus, millions were sickened, and for this and other reasons violence broke out across the nation, leaving death and destruction in its wake, and an already battered nation had to deal with further loss, and another obstacle in its path back to a normal life. 

But consider this; if people are going to allow this pandemic to completely rule over them and control their lives, nothing will change. If they listen to all the voices telling them what they should and should not do, where they should and should not go, nothing will change. If they accept without question, and even a modicum of skepticism, all the information and warnings from establishment voices in the media, the political class, and the experts, nothing will change. And if the voices create in the minds of the people, especially the most vulnerable, that there is no hope, and that this is what a new normal will now look like, nothing will change. 

But we are not a nation of weak, intimidated, and subservient people who run away from a fight for what’s right. We are selfless and responsible, steadfast and strong in our determination to defeat any enemy we face. We have fought wars for independence and freedom, and have beaten back tyrants and brutal regimes, not only for our own peace and prosperity, but for other nations. This is our heritage, what the Founders and those who preceded us in our families and fellow countrymen and women, have handed down. 

There are those among us who have become addicted to the virus in all its manifestations, who behave as though it is watching their every move, and act like frightened children. The few that walk the streets are fully covered from head to toe, many with two masks. I am out there each day, and when walking, which is often, realize from experience how people react when being approached by another, so I give them a wide berth, leaving the sidewalk and continuing on in the street, carefully. 

It is understood that there are those who have suffered greatly, and have lost loved ones to the pandemic, violence in the streets, and other illnesses, and we pray for their comfort and peace. For all others, however, whose only burden is to have to adjust and sacrifice, and make some changes in their lifestyle, but who have become absorbed in self-pity and selfishness toward others, and remain secluded in their homes like scared little children - “Cease and desist! Get on with your lives.”