Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The Worst of Times, The Worst of Times


Tonight as I was driving home I heard a commentary on NPR stating that this decade that is about twenty-four hours from being over and done with, was, in a nutshell, the worst decade ever. It went on to list horrible thing after horrible thing, and to be honest...they were all horrible. Each and every one of them. And yet, despite the seemingly never ending laundry list of financial, political and social debacles on both a national and world-wide front, I was unconvinced.

Maybe it is my pig-headed resistance to label ANYTHING in the superlative. If you ask me, nothing is best. Nothing is worst. Nothing is favorite. The same goes for pretty, ugly, funny, disgusting, happy or sad. As far as I'm concerned there are plenty of candidates to go around in any category you could name, and to pick just one at the exclusion of all the other possibilities seems unfair.

No matter how lousy the last ten years were, I just can't seem to look at it as THE WORST ever.  Even as we pull away from the first decade of the 21st century and look in the rear-view mirror, it wasn't ALL bad. But sometimes it seems to take a little more time and a lot more work to remember the good stuff, because we get the bad stuff in multiple doses, all day, every day.  I'm not saying we should forget the hard times, the mistakes we have made and the losses we have suffered individually, as a country or throughout the world. I know there have been plenty, and probably more than one decade should bear.  But still in all, I'm not one for sackcloth and ashes, and I, for one, would rather learn and LIVE, than rage at the moon or hang my head in eternal shame.

Tomorrow night, when some will be bidding good riddance to bad rubbish, I am going to take a moment to gather together in my mind all those people that are important to me. Some are near. Some are far. Some are no longer here in body. But each and every one of them were and are and continue to be a real part of my life and my journey. So while others are anxiously kicking the decade to the curb, I'm going to gather my forces and with gratitude and remembrance for what came before, and love and hope for what is to come, walk with as much confidence and determination as I can possibly muster into the next decade.

Happy 2010.
I'm glad we're all here.

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