Let’s all be better in the new year

There’s nothing worse than a cynic on New Year’s Eve.

But here I am to remind everyone that, no, despite our wishes, everything bad in the world won’t be eradicated by the dawn of the new year.

Nor should it, because calendars are a man-made concept to make sense of the seasons and, mathematically, the 365.25 days in a year merely mark our earth making a single revolution around the sun.

Though the end of the coronavirus pandemic seems to be in sight and many of the woes of the past year may prove to be eradicated with the virus’ vaccine, nothing wholistic about ourselves and this country will change for the better unless we learn from our mistakes of 2020.

What I mean by this is that the discourse, inaction and injustice that plagued America this year will continue unless we make a conscious effort to learn and grow and come to peace with one another.

As with the new year, the worst of the country will not change when a new president takes office Jan. 20, but perhaps the new administration will be a catalyst for a resurgence of good in this new America, which will be forever changed by both the pandemic and President Donald Trump’s single term in office.

Maybe under the federal government’s new leadership we can learn to work with one another and stand for this country’s guiding principals and find strength in our diversity rather than letting bigotry, another man-made concept, bring out the worst of us.

If we fail to eradicate prejudice behavior and implicit bias against people of different races and non-traditional gender-identities and sexual orientations, America’s democracy may never work.

For too long we have let our differences keep this democracy, which is supposed to be represented by folks of all different backgrounds, from working as well as it could.

Our democracy’s flaws were on display in perhaps its greatest magnitude this year. While we bickered over the virus and personal liberties, more than 300,000 Americans died from COVID-19 because of our inaction while other countries were able to keep deaths to a minimum.

This was allowed to happen because we elected somebody who purposely tries to divide us, so it was impossible for this country to unite and effectively combat the pandemic under the current president.

But rather than letting Trumpism continue to corrupt our morality, we can dedicate the new year to peace, compromise and acceptance.

And a better America is worth a New Year’s toast, though you may bore whoever you are spending the first minutes of 2021 if you read this column aloud prior to popping the champagne, so let’s boil it down to a single line: For everyone’s sake, let’s be better in 2021.