January 2022

What’s your goal for the New Year? Yes, you heard me – what’s your goal!?

You see, many of us want to forget about 2021 and we breathed a sigh of relief when the clock turned to 2022. To be frank, 2021 is a blur in my memory. In fact if I am truthful my dreams in technicolor finished in March 2020, because the early part of the month was filled with joy as we frolicked on the beaches in Ixtapa, Mexico. The rest of that year is made up of sketches of activity as I worked my last year as a physician and retired in December 2020. Because of COVID I was cheated from saying goodbye to those with whom I had worked for 28 years. 2021 felt like a nightmare; from the heady heights of what vaccination promised to cancelled trips. From the promise of a new phase of life in retirement to the frustration and anger of life being shut down by COVID. I don’t know about you, but my psyche shuts down the details of nightmares, and so most of 2020 and 2021 are years that I have chosen to forget. I see them in “black and white” rather than technicolor. Which brings me to what this newsletter is about – our goal for 2022.

2022 will be the first year of living with the reality that COVID has changed our lives drastically, and that we will need to accommodate its presence in how we live in the future. My goal for 2022 is to find a place where my wife and I can enjoy retirement, living in such a way that we contribute to people around us. In 2022 I will choose to separate myself from the alienation that COVID has forced on me, and the anger associated with this. I will find the space and time to think about things other than COVID, where I can paint and read; where the demands are little and the rewards greater.

So, let me ask you…what’s your goal for 2022? Will you want to find meaning in what you do; or experience freedom in who you are? Will you open yourself to see joy again and to experience purpose in what you do? I really hope so. 2022 provides us all an opportunity to breathe again, to dream dreams, and to open ourselves to friendships and new experiences. I have to believe that Omicron will pass, and that COVID will be put into an endemic phase. I don’t see life as meaningful if this isn’t the case, so I cling to the probability that this can be achieved.

Let’s all find a goal to cling to; one that motivates us in a meaningful way. Who cares that it isnt safe to dream about the future at the moment! Lets just choose to believe that dreaming dreams is as important as living them out…

Best wishes for a successful New Year

Peter Craighead