I always welcome a new year with hope and good will. I’m trying to continue that tradition this year but I find it extremely difficult to be as optimistic as I’ve been in past years. This is uncharacteristic for me. As a rule, I’m an eternal optimist, not a Pollyanna but I am generally optimistic.
This year, I started to think about the wishes/hopes I have for you and for me in the coming year. Once I got past the traditional love/hope/peace items, I began to realize that everything else on my list related to the disgraceful language, actions, disregard for the common (wo)man that spews daily from the White House and its current resident. And the lies. Never has there been a POTUS who could even think up as many untruths as this one tells daily.
This administration, along with our current Congress, has caused me to cry and rage in shame many times for an entire year. Making the rich richer and the poor poorer is their primary goal. Or maybe it’s destroying the environment by ignoring science. They’ve also done a bang-up job of alienating our allies and causing further rifts between us and our adversaries.
The best I can tell, no world leaders trust our President to do anything constructive. I used to worry a bit about George W damaging our international image. He did do some damage but our current “leader” makes me miss GW. At least George had a kind face and I didn’t gag when I spoke his name.
Even Pope Francis appears to have serious concerns about this President. He doesn’t usually speak his name in his comments, but it’s easy to tell whom he means to address with his concerns. According to Newsweek, the Pope was as unhappy with 2017 as I. He called it a “wasted year of death and lies, harming the environment and humanity as a whole.”
If you’ve read this far, thank you for letting me get this off my chest. Maybe now I can return to my happier self and look forward to another year. I wish you, and all of us, a year of peace and love and good health. And for myself, the ability to recognize that this, too, shall pass. I can’t change much, but I can change how I react to the injustices around me. I can work locally to elect better people in 2018. I’m sure as hell going to hope for a Blue Tsunami in the next elections.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I absolutely mean it.
Back On My Own 
Pat,
I get it.
I’m trying not to focus on that person in the White House…
because I get angry and begin to become unconstructive & out of control, which is good for
nobody.
He will be out soon enough. In the meantime, let’s still try to change the world.
xx from MN.
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Hi Chickie. It’s so good to hear from you. About this post – I think I wrote to let off steam. Sometimes I find writing my rage is helpful to me, I don’t know what it does for/to the reader. I’m thinking that the readers who didn’t comment may be speaking more loudly than those who did. And that’s okay, too. Thanks for reading and taking time to comment. Xoxo from NC.
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Love you, Pat! Happy New Year!
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Love you, too, Beth. Happy New Year!
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Your POTUS seems intent on destroying what has taken you and your fellow Americans so many years to build. From this side of the world, I sympathise with you and your concerns. But as you say, only you can determine how you think about his words and actions and how you let them influence you. May you have a Better New Year.
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Thank you, Judith. I’m truly hoping for a better year. Happy New Year to you.
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I trust in the dictum that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time – hopefuly, it won’t take much longer.
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Thank you, Cat. I hope you’re right.
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So do I – something’s gotta give!
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