More Than Just Wishes for 2025

The year’s end always feels monumental – filled with endings, beginnings, stock-taking, plan-making and desk-clearing to create a clean slate for all the positive developments we hope will come along with our next giant circle around the sun.

So, what do we hope 2025 will bring? More importantly, what are we going to do to turn our hopes into reality? Because as Vince Lombardi once said, “Hope is not a strategy.”

Not to be too “tough love,” but it’s not enough to wish for this or hope for that. Thoughts and prayers are great, but they aren’t the cure-all and end-all. The prescriptive we know that works is taking action, which for most people is easier said than done. Because, aside from our personal challenges, those we collectively face are global and enormous and sometimes it feels like kicking a glacier.

I’ve started hearing the phrase tossed around – “Divided States of America” – which naturally raises the question, can we as individuals bridge that divide? It’s useful to note that while Rome wasn’t built in a day, it also didn’t expire in a day and the decline of that empire actually took place over several centuries (finally ending when the last Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus was overthrown by the German warlord Odoacer in 476 AD). 

My friend once shared with me an analogy about a relationship they had that at a certain point was like a vase with so many cracks it could no longer hold water. While it’s easy to see our nation as having so many cracks it’s metaphorically leaking, I see it more like cracks we can still repair. As our handyman once said, “a little spackle and a little paint makes a lousy carpenter what he ain’t.” 

But where to start?

How about by listening? Listen to your opponent. Hear what the other side is saying. Is there any validity to what they’re saying? Any? Any insight that might help you better understand rather than demonize them? I make no secret that I’m a long-time registered Democrat, but my party has clearly not done a great job of listening to a lot of people in this country. Like 77 million people. 

The fact is, there are leaders and countries and business models that thrive on our growing divisions, binary decision making, and black-and-white position taking; aka “engagement.” But we have the choice to tell them no. And one way to do that is by tricking the algorithm – by busting out of our silos and listening to the “other.” If you get most of your news from the left, try to occasionally listen to the right, and vice versa. What you’ll find is that your algorithm will pivot with you and what you’ll start to get is, dare I say it, a little more of a balance. More human nuance. Which I think is worthwhile, because people are complicated, and many things can be true at once. None of us would want to be judged by the stupidest thing we ever said or the least sensitive thing we ever did.

I’ve heard so many people talk about the importance of fighting for democracy, and in the same breath talk about leaving the country because their team lost. Like human beings, democracy is not perfect. It’s a work in progress. If we want to live in an active democracy, we each need to take an active role in that democracy. Our electeds are flawed humans like all of us, and they can’t and won’t fix this by themselves. So, let’s not build them up too much, but let’s not be so quick to cut them down, either. We can’t just elect leaders and expect they’ve got this. They don’t. They need us. Don’t underestimate the part we each can play in bringing change.

Here are my hopes for all of us for 2025: I hope for peace, in the world and in our lives. I hope we can somehow find our way to a place where civility and integrity and compassion are not just platitudes but become more prominent and more prevalent. And I hope that we will demand the same of our leaders.

I hope we can begin to step out of our silos, to open our minds and hearts to the ideas and opinions and journeys of others. More than anything, I hope we can begin to reinvest in the idea of compromise. Because a world with only winners and losers is not one in which we can each feel seen. Who said we all have to agree on everything in order to work together, or even play together? It’s not true and it’s not helpful. Remember, the U.S. Constitution was drafted by arch philosophical and political opponents. Look what they created.

The thing I love most about the new year is that it’s another chance to get it right. None of us knows how many of those we get. So, let’s make this one count. Please engage with your democracy. It needs you; and certainly, it beats the alternative. 

On behalf of the entire MJ team, I wish you all a wonderful holiday filled with love and laughter and good health.