2022 – “I have a dream.”

Santa Ynez Valley, CA

A new year has arrived and with it the obligatory customs of a fresh start. The expectation we’ll review and assess the past year, have a couple epiphanies and make some salient resolutions to improve our future. And to that assumption may I just say: HA!

After bravely struggling through 2020 – and looking forward (naively) to the sweet promise of 2021 – we had our hopes ground into a murky paste stuck to the bottom of our collective shoes that no amount of optimism allowed us to scrape off. So yes, this year we’re feeling a bit … done.

Voices in the throng, a dwindling herd of idealists, spur us on with declarations like: ‘it’s always darkest just before the dawn’ and ‘there’s light at the end of the tunnel’ and other pithy cheerleading tropes to help us stay in the game.

Whilst reading these noteworthy quotes (desperately seeking an upbeat spin on 2022) when I tripped over the always-elevating Martin Luther King, Jr. With his birthday smack dab in the center of this month it feels appropriate to immerse ourselves in his words – some of the world’s best dang advice on making it through life’s toughest moments.

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars,” a perfectly phrased reminder that even in the midst of our frustration and continuing strife there are tiny pieces of beauty.
“The time is always right to do what is right,” a suggestion we need to dig deep and find our inner patience for one another seeing as it’s more evident than ever that … “we may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

Maybe once we’ve exhausted our physical resources we’re left only with the option to ‘get your mind right.’ My hubby often advocates this adage so I grimace and grouse and try. But for 2022 I’m going to attempt this existential hat trick in bite size pieces because … “if I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” (Yup, Dr. King said that, too.)

This year it may feel disingenuous to extol the virtues of positive thinking. But you don’t have to be Pollyanna to see that adjusting our goals may still allow us to keep our spirits, our chins and our peckers up. MLK encouraged, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Now that? That’s a proposition we can all embrace.

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.