New Year’s Eve, 2021, will soon lie behind us.

And for most people, saying “Goodbye” to 2021 can’t happen soon enough.

New Year’s Eve is traditionally a time for people to reflect on the major events of the previous 12 months. Some of these are highly personal. Others have been shared by the entire country.

Some of these remembrances inevitably bring pleasure. Others bring pain.

And 2021 has been a year of pain for millions.

Starting on January 6, then-President Donald Trump incited thousands of his fanatical disciples to attack the United States Capitol Building.

The reason: To halt the counting of Electoral College votes to certify the legitimate Presidential victory of Joe Biden in 2020—thus leaving Trump in office as “President-for-Life.”

Donald Trump

Fortunately, democracy was saved—for the moment.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 continued to sweep across the globe. To date, it’s infected 285 million worldwide—and killed 5.42 million. In the United States, it’s infected 153.8 million and killed 822,000.

But by March, three new vaccines were being rolled out—and thus saving the lives of untold numbers of potential COVID victims.

COVID-19

At the heart of every New Year’s Eve celebration is the fantasy that you get to start fresh in a matter of hours. And with that fantasy comes hope—that, this time, you can put your sorrows and failures behind you. 

And for millions in 2022, life will look brighter—because Donald Trump, whose Presidency was marked by unprecedented criminality and treason, no longer holds office.

True, Trump has refused to admit that he was defeated in a legitimate election. And his lust to become America’s Dictator-in-chief remains as lethal as ever.

But democracies are always threatened by would-be tyrants. And Americans can take heart in the knowledge that, in 1945, they helped defeat two of the worst—in Germany and Japan.

And, for 50 years during the Cold War, they stood firm against dictators in China and the Soviet Union.

The last New Year’s Eve to be marked by worldwide fears was that of 1999:

• Fear of Y2K—that our highly computerized, globally-interconnected world would crash when the “19″ at the start of every year was replaced with a “20″.
• Fear of Armageddon—that Jesus, after dying 2,000 years ago, would magically return to destroy mankind (except for those 144,000 righteous souls He deemed worthy of salvation).
• Fear of the Millennium itself—of ending not simply another decade and century but an entire thousand-year period of history, and thus losing our historical ties to the familiar highlights of our own (and America’s) past.

And, especially where Y2K was concerned, news commentators were quick to stoke our anxieties.

Long before New Year’s Eve, TV newscasters repeatedly warned that, when midnight struck on January 1, 2000, the three places you did not want to be were:

• In an airplane.
• In an elevator.
• In a hospital.

Countless numbers of people in America and around the world stocked up on food, water, batteries and other essentials for surviving an emergency.

Merchants and police feared widespread rioting and violence. If Y2K didn’t set it off, then fears of a heaven-sent Apocalypse might.

In San Francisco, along Powell Street—a major center of tourism and commerce—store owners boarded up their doors and windows as New Year’s Eve approached. Many closed earlier than usual that day.

Fortunately, when midnight struck on January 1, 2000, the predictors of the coming Apocalypse were proven wrong.

• Computers kept working—and civilization didn’t crash along with them.
• Jesus didn’t miraculously return from the dead—just as he hadn’t during any previous year.
• And those who feared that the Millennium would usher in a strange and frightening new world soon found that 2000 was not all that different from previous years.

New Year’s Eve 1999 is now 22 years distant. But some lessons may still be learned from it:   

Each year is a journey unto itself—filled with countless joys and sorrows. Many of these joys can’t be predicted. And many of these tragedies can’t be prevented.

Learn to tell real dangers from imaginary ones. Computers are real—and sometimes they crash. Men who died 2,000 years ago do not leap out of graveyards, no matter what their disciples predict.

Don’t expect any particular year to usher in the Apocalypse. In any given year there will be wars, famines, earthquakes, riots, floods and a host of other disasters. These have always been with us—and always will be. As Abraham Lincoln once said: “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” 

BumFluff2009, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Don’t expect any particular year or event to usher in your happiness. To again quote Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

If your life seems to make no sense to you, consider this: The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once noted: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”