I asked a man I barely know what his New Year’s resolutions were. Mutual far away friends asked that I give solace to this stranger, grieving the recent death of his mother, packing up her long and happy life in an unfamiliar town. Apparently I give good solace.

It’s not surprising since I have been (am) often in need of solace myself these days, given who we are, where we are and what we are at this very point in time. Everyone needs comfort, we know that, but never more so than this year, an election year. This is a year in which we are going to need large doses of good cheer, especially since we’re being told that it’s the most important election of our new democracy… We will also need buckets of resilience and patience to stave off the urge to throw things at the television, to use unusual means to wipe the fake smile of the face of politicians trying to peddle policy. This man I barely know said he’d long given up making resolutions because “they only get broken”. It’s the problem with resolutions. People make them, expecting them to fail. I suppose that’s because they set the bar so high that sticking to the promises made on the first day of the New Year are impossible to sustain. It’s the maxim I’m sticking to this year: choose simpl...

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