New year, new you!
You’re going to be sober(er), thinner, more organized. You’re obviously going to finish that one project you’ve been putting off. You’re of course going to read more. This will most definitely be the year you successfully grow tomatoes.
You’ve got plans.
I was recently thinking about all of my big plans for a new year, and they all involve some kind of self-improvement. Whether for work, or in my personal relationship or just my relationship with the scale, I noticed that all my plans involve positive, forward motion. Naturally. Who makes a New Year’s resolution to make things worse for themselves?
I know I’m just stating the obvious here, but bear with me as I think through this…and I have been thinking.
I’ve been thinking about how much everything sucks. It seems like everything good is falling apart around us, and the inmates are running the asylum. My unsuccessful run for school board gave me a window into politics that has only served to increase my cynicism and dread. I saw nothing hopeful about the process, particularly here in California.
Joe Biden is the President. Kamala Harris is the Vice President. They are two of the worst politicians in modern history, and there is mounting evidence that they are not great human beings either. With the most inept White House in memory at the helm, America’s status and security has not just been slipping, but plummeting.
Inflation is sucking the joy out of everything. Gas prices are unstable at best and unaffordable at worst, and you don’t know which of those scenarios you’re going to enjoy on any given day.
Our state and local governments in most of the country are working to enshrine COVID restrictions and power-grabs, nearly three years after “15 days to slow the spread.” In California, Governor Newsom is on year three of State of Emergency powers.
Our schools, science and health sectors are infected with radical, anti-science agendas that seek to groom and mutilate our children on the altar of gender ideology. Parents are being villainized and pushed out of the equation by hateful activists and selfish political operators.
Our voting process has never been more chaotic or vulnerable.
Extremists seem to rule the conversation in every public sector of American life right now. Everything is crazy and every time I turn on the news, or look at social media, I see nothing but angst, cruelty, chaos and sure signs of the decline of America.
Yet, here I am, making plans for a better year, a better life, a better me. Why? What for? To reiterate…everything sucks.
Here’s why: because if we don’t hope, we fail. We are predisposed to hope. Hope is literally the engine of the future. It is what drives us to look beyond the rough times, to the better times ahead. We sweat and labor to plant the seeds, looking ahead to that time when those seeds will grow into sustenance, survival, and celebrations shared with friends and families.
America herself is hope. We have rested the greatest civilization in the world on the notion that sacrifice is the stalwart husband of hope, that the marriage of these two things will give birth to progress, and that progress can be enjoyed by anyone willing to take part in the union.
This new year, as you read about all the ridiculous, maddening news we report here at RedState, try not to let it get you down. If you wallow in it, the news can make you feel hopeless. Don’t forget to take a few beats to look up, look around, and look forward. Think about all of the resolutions you made for the year, and even if most of them don’t come to fruition, take a minute to remind yourself of why you made them in the first place.
Hopelessness is all around us, but hope is embedded in our very natures as Americas.
This new year, stay informed, but cling to hope and chase your joy. Life is still so very good to us in so many ways. There is still so much for you to do and be. Go do it. Go be it.
I hope 2023 is everything you hope it will be.
