Happy not so new year, lovely readers! I’m putting it out there now – this is going to be a splendid 2022 OK? All things considered, it couldn’t be any worse than the last two now could it? What’s more, I was recently recommended a handy little tool designed to help you make your 2022 exactly that – splendid. Gonna tell you about that in just a sec. First though, let’s look at some of the more onerous outcomes of the pandemic, aside from the incessant headlines that saturated our screens regarding our mortality and the loss of so many loved ones…

Negatives

We’ve seen ‘the great resignation’ as folk realise they don’t need to be in an office to do their work, much less in their hometown. We’ve seen burnout as the day’s bookend rituals – the commute, for instance – have blurred the boundaries between work and play. We’ve seen a lift in divorces as families juggle multiple and oft conflicting priorities of family, homeschooling, wellbeing, self-maintenance and more during an endless stream of lockdowns. I could go on. An example…

Upon greeting me with a happy new year, a girlfriend immediately exclaimed – ‘what a shit of a year last year was!’ In an attempt to lift her spirits, I responded by saying ‘but you married the love of your life, that must count for something?‘ It didn’t. I learnt that she’d personally organised her entire engagement party, her wedding and then the sad business of burying her Mum all amidst the evershifting ‘on-again, off-again lockdown rules. it’s no wonder she was feeling frayed and exhausted. Another victim of a pandemic that continues to demand our attention. The argument between the vaccinated and the non, the cost of RAT tests, returning to the office, food and supply shortages for instance. Heck, just writing that I feel exhausted! But there have been upsides to the last two years. Quite a few, in fact.

Positives

Environmentally, we saw planet earth the way it used to be, could be, should be, when the world stood still during our initial lockdowns. (Here’s a link to a little story I wrote about that: Ten delightful environmental developments just for you) We recognised that we don’t need an office to do our work. That commutes take valuable hours from our family time. We identified that we can be quite creative when we have time on our hands. We relished the sun on our faces after an isolation event and we realised that heading to the beach was far more nurturing than that long-awaited nail salon appointment. In fact, jobs are now aplenty, the unemployment rate lower than pre covid and more. We’ve had our own seismic shift!