The Closet Professor

Some sage advice for 2021:

“Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.”

—Helen Keller

“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

—C.S. Lewis

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

—George Eliot

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

—Nelson Mandela

“What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven’t even happened yet.”

—Anne Frank

“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each year find you a better man.”

—Benjamin Franklin

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

—Thomas Jefferson

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

—Socrates

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”

—T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘it will be happier.’”

—Alfred Lord Tennyson

One of the things I think we all have learned this year is how selfish and hateful many people are. After four years of a Donald Trump presidency, people have lost all sense of decorum and decency. That was never more apparent than when the pandemic began, and people were asked to wear masks, social distance, and not gather in crowds. While many of us followed these directives, many others did not. They protested the mask mandates and the temporary closures because it “violated their personal freedoms.” Yet, they seemed to not care about others’ rights as they derided the Black Lives Matter Movement. Many people’s ugly personalities came out over 2020, and they became so prevalent we saw “Karens” and “Richards” everywhere we looked. People need to understand that they are not entitled to deny someone else their life, health, or livelihood. We’ve seen a Republican Senate that has refused to offer aid to starving and jobless Americans. When significant problems arose, they abdicated their leadership responsibilities for partisanship, Trumpism, and denial.

I hope that 2021 will be a year of healing. I pray that we will see a return to kindness. I want 2021 to be a year of hope. The Trump presidency will end on January 20, and hopefully, the Senate will be in the hands of Democrats after the January 5 runoff in Georgia. If the Republicans retain control of the Senate, we will see at least two more years of inaction and hatefulness. This coming year could be a year of great change and finally be a time when the United States moves in the right direction and lives up to the words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men humans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The past year saw many people fight against the idea that all people are created equal, and they have done their best to deprive us of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This needs to change, and the United States needs to finally live up to its promise. We need equality and rights for all people wherever in the world they may be, and we need to be a world leader in making sure that comes to fruition. We need to put aside our differences and work together to make this world a better place before destroying it and becoming more akin to those dystopian novels of destruction where there is even greater suffering or injustice.

Let us pray that 2021 will be a better year. I pray it will be a year of hope and a year when we begin to work towards equality for all. I pray that we will work together to create a world that is devoid of discrimination on the basis of age, disability, genetic information, military service or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

I wish you all peace, good health, prosperity, and equality in the new year. May 2021 be a hope-filled year for all of humankind.