Happy new year to everybody. I mean it. We need to be optimistic. We need to hope for the best. I also believe in preparing for the worst. But we have to embrace the new year as a kind of a hope for a reset, as a point in time that something new has a chance to emerge, something better. If you don’t have this hope, it will be just difficult to get up in the morning.
Hope can’t be completely naive. It can’t be too exuberant. We need to still look at reality, but we need to allow ourselves a little bit of this promise that a completely artificial new number at an artificially chosen point in time can bring us something new, something better.
I sometimes am a believer in self-actualization. I believe that if you approach things with hope and a can-do attitude, things may work out a little bit easier than if you don’t. Because if you don’t have the sense of optimism, then why do things? If you don’t force yourself into this point of okay, let’s see how to make the best out of this, then why do things?
There are so many reasons to be depressed—or rather to use a better word, to be sad, because depression is a clinical thing and I don’t want to confuse the two. Though as the saying goes, there are way more ways of being dead than alive. We can cherish being alive. There are way more ways to be frustrated about the state of the world than to be joyous. But we can pick our joy.
We can determine our own path. And actually, we have to—we are all individuals. This is our life. We have to live this life in a community with others, sure. But it is our life. Don’t let others ruin it for you. Don’t let yourself be manipulated either to the point where you feel everything is pointless, because that can also be a political strategy. It can also be a business strategy.
Don’t believe that things are worse than ever before. In some ways, that’s right. Biodiversity, the state of the planet, climate change—there are things that need improving. Economy can always be better, can also be worse. There are wars going on. There could be more wars. I’m not saying I want that. I’m just saying, put it into perspective.
And if you really feel that things need to get better, try to do something within your abilities. And even if it means to be a little bit less judgmental to others, even if it means to be nicer to people, even if it means to be spreading some joy and hope around, that also contributes.
So, I don’t like New Year’s resolutions. I think they’re kind of pointless. They’re more like a joke, but it’s an ongoing resolution of mine. It’s an old, old thing to try to leave things in a better place than the way that you found them. Try to be nice. Try to be that to others that you wish they were to you.
Yeah. So, in that sense, I mean it. Happy new year, and I am optimistic about the future in spite of everything.
[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]
Erratic Attempts 