Happy New Year!
This is my first blog post of 2022. A-n-d…writing it doesn’t feel any different than writing a blog post in 2021. Honestly, so far 2022 does not feel dramatically different than 2021. No earth-shaking revelations, no epiphanies, no existential paradigm shifts.
Realistic Expectations and Fond Hopes
Luckily for me, I didn’t really expect to wake up January 1 and find the world transformed. I consider myself a hopeful realist. Life is not a movie or a novel. In fact, that’s part of the appeal of fiction. Creating it, we can order the world the way we want it to be and change it at will. Consuming it, we can choose works that offer us worlds that we want to live in instead of the one we actually live in.
Moving Forward
None of this is to say that I’m depressed or pessimistic about 2022. Rather than a do-over, I see this year as a chance to move forward. I can look back at what didn’t turn out the way I wanted and, for those things that are in my control, I can make the conscious decision to change the circumstances and behaviors that led to undesirable outcomes. I can also change the way I cope with those things beyond my control. Best of all, I have a whole new slate of books and movies to choose from in 2022 and a whole new year to write. Many, many chances to choose a fictional world, and to create one of my own, where things work out the way I want them to.
What do you plan to read or watch or write this year? Share here, on Facebook, or on Twitter.