The Year of Living Rationally

Wishful Thinking for 2025

For many people, or so I’m told, the advent of a new year brings a tangible feeling of rejuvenation. The simple act of flipping the last page of the calendar somehow provides the batteries of the soul with a fresh charge. It leads folks to believe, or at least hope, that what lies ahead will be more rosy than that which was left behind. Apparently, this changing of the digits is the metaphysical equivalent of a Mulligan, a do-over, the cosmic commensurate of being allowed to not only pass “GO,” but to also collect two-hundred dollars and be granted a boon from the Community Chest.

I’m not sure about the validity of such reactions, but that may be because I don’t own a calendar. Every year people send me calendars, and every year I stick them in a drawer. Actually, I’m beginning to suspect my drawers are merely off-ramps to a black hole. I cannot ever recall finding these dated gifts after stowing them away; they apparently vanish into the same sucking void that gobbles up socks, pens, lighters, sunglasses, and scraps of paper bearing very important phone numbers.

I’m just not big into times and dates, except in the case of historical context. They’re a good benchmark for looking back, but in terms of forward motion, the demarcation of days, weeks, months, and years is trivial. I prefer more simple rules of thumb. The sun is high or the moon is low. There’s frost on the pumpkin, snow in the air, redbuds in bloom, or tourists on the river.

How much more information does a body need?

At any rate, reliable sources tell me that we have left 2024 and are now in 2025. I’m unsure if this is good or bad. The year 2024 started off with a case of the virulent gloomies and went downhill from there. On the other hand, the prognosis for 2025 seems to indicate that we might experience skies that – if not clear – and least aren’t filled with black clouds. Jobs have been scarce, money has beem tight, and the crop of “elected” busybodies we’ve suffered under for the past four years seem determined to bankrupt us by levying new taxes on everything from air to zucchinis.

Maybe it’s just a hillbilly thing, but I’ve a strong aversion toward folks attempting to pry more green from my wallet. I’m especially opposed to this odious practice when they try and tell me it’s for my own good.

I’m hopeful 2025 will be a trifle better than normal, but I’m also a pessimist who seeks to avoid disappointment whenever possible. Thus, I’vedevised a personal methodology to assure acceptable levels of joy and minimize annoyance. You see, it recently struck me that, when a problem rears its ugly head, all a person need do is ask themselves a very simple question.

That being . . . “Can I do anything about it?”

If the answer to that query is in the affirmative, then there should be no cause for alarm. If the response is in the negative, there is as well no need to stew or sweat. All events are either within your control, or they’re not. In the former case, one needs but to implement a solution. In the latter case, since your actions will have no effect, the sole option is to relax to the inevitable.

I realize such an approach flies in the face of prevailing conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is nearly always a battle between the fashionable and the sagacious. It leads people to trust consensus over common senses, endorsing the popular belief that decisions are faulty if lacking in detail, complication, and an endless interrogation of mind and soul. When we look at life in retrospect, our best and most effective actions and judgments are inevitably those with the fewest moving parts.

It recently hit me that I’ve spent about 50 of my 65 years living in backwoods locales where simplicity has been the rule rather than the exception. In these places, you cut the wood, dodge the twister, and do your best to avoid getting drowned, frozen, or eaten. You don’t really take more than you need, but neither do you accept less than what you’re worth. For best results, in both those places and elsewhere, life should be lived not year-to-year, month-to-month, or even day-to-day. For the happiest and most harmonious outcome, minute-to-minute seems about right.

The point of all this, is that years don’t matter. Whether it’s 2024 or 2025 means very little when taken to the most basic of personal levels. It’s just a meaningless designation. Far more critical, since they are fleeting at best, are the minutes that make up one’s span of existence. You can spend it in worry, neck-deep in detail, or you can be thankful, enjoying the simple pleasures that are in abundance. You can have headaches, or you can have fun.

The correct choice requires no thought at all.