On the myth of magical calendars

 The post that inspired this blog, when a friend asked me to put some of my "better" FB posts together on a blog where she could find them more easily. Originally posted to Facebook on Thursday, January 7, 2021:

I recall Malcolm Gladwell hypothesizing about how differences in climate and which crop is being cultivated could give rise to different cultural attitudes about the relationship between effort and outcomes. As examples he talked about how when you are primarily growing rice in a relatively temperate climate, more effort pretty reliably results in a higher yield, while if growing wheat in a region with extreme and unpredictable weather, your agricultural success depends in large part on circumstances beyond your control. He went on to compare this to different prevailing attitudes about the importance of effort versus fate in outcomes in, for example, many East Asian cultures on the one hand and Russian culture on the other.
I bring this up now because I've seen so many memes about how we thought things would get better now that 2020 is over but 2021 is already in "hold my beer" territory. I remember similar hopeful sentiments being expressed at the end of 2019 which were dashed almost immediately by Australian wildfires, tension with Iran, and a whole bunch of other calamities before we had even really heard of a new virus causing trouble across the ocean.
I think it betrays something about our thinking that we assume that the passage of time in and of itself will bring better outcomes. The problems with the world, we seem to believe, are in some significant part caused by numerical designations on a calendar, by fates of which we are but helpless victims, unable to escape their merciless grasp until the advancement of numerical designations on a calendar frees us from the spell under which we are held captive.
That's a load of crap. Things won't get better because one year ends and another one begins. They will get better because of choices we make, because of changes we pursue, because of action we take. Certainly there are individuals and groups who are better positioned for their choices, words, and actions to have more widespread impact, but that doesn't excuse the rest of us from doing our part rather than waiting for a magical trip around the sun to send the bad vibes to another dimension. No one snowflake feels responsible for an avalanche...
Those of you who are exhausted from doing far more than your part this whole year and long before... I see you! This post isn't addressed to you, although if you take any encouragement from seeing these words put out by yet another voice I am happy to offer even such a meager token. This post is for the rest of us who throw up our hands in despair and cry "I wish I could do something!"
We can. Let's pay attention to the ones already doing the work, listen to and learn from them, then put our time, our resources, our energy, and our money to work right alongside - and at least for a while slightly behind - them. Let's not wait to see what 2021 will bring, let's get to work building the 2021 we want!
(Obviously, there are so many who are at the mercy of the inaction of those of us who sit around and wish things would just get better, and I adamantly am not trying to preach a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" message to folks being forcibly held down under others' boots... but by and large those aren't the people reading my Facebook posts...)

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