Wow. Another year; new hope, new renewal.
We live in a wonderful, exciting time. At what point in our history has so much information been available to us at the stroke of a key or click of a mouse? Most of it good, some of it distorted beyond normal proportions.
We have major societal and political decisions to make this year. In the arena of the latter, we will be looking at a new Congress controlled by one party, and the President of a different party. Will bitterness and finger pointing continue, or will they finally realize that we, the people, are getting tired of all the nonsense? It has been hard not to be bored with all the foolishness on the part of some members of Congress who seem mainly interested in wanting to destroy the President, and then him striking back with his own agenda. Can’t they understand that we pay them, and they need to at least start a dialogue?
They will need to sort out sending our military people back to places where we thought our war was over. They will need to sort out how to deal with Cuba. They will need to sort out foreign policy toward Asia and Europe. They will need to sort out immigration. They will need to sort out how to keep the economy strong and keep job strength growth. They will need to sort out how we protect ourselves from cyber warfare.
And what do we need to take care of? We will need to sort out what we want to do about our personal cyber security. We will need to sort out how we approach social media. Are we going to stop using Facebook and Twitter as much? Are we going to spend as much time working, and more time with family? Are we going to be able to sort out how our communities interact within our society? We will need to sort out where one person’s freedom of speech ends and another begins. Will we understand that racism lives in many segments of our communities and that police and community need to work with one another and respect one another?
When I was young, I had all the answers. As a teen, a right wing conservative, I had all the answers. In college in the Vietnam era, I became a liberal and had all the answers.
Now, as a “mature baby boomer” (whatever mature means) I realize having the true answer may be impossible in many cases. I find myself more and more wanting to look at both sides of issues and try to take the bright spots in both. Is that wussy, or is that smart? See I don’t even have the answer to that!
So I warned you coming into this column, it would be random and it is. I just hope and wish for the new year, 2015 that we all can spend more time trying to figure out how to live together and solve our problems rather than “hating on” people who may approach things differently than we do.
Can we try to make 2015, truly, a year of renewal; can we try to truly understand each other? If we can endeavor to do that, this could be the best year yet.
Does that make sense?
Leave a Reply