Today is the Winter Solstice.<\/p>\n
Depending on your view of things that means it\u2019s either the shortest day or the longest night of the year.<\/p>\n
The reality, of course, is that it is both.<\/p>\n
And so it goes for other kinds of reality, too.<\/p>\n
The year just passed may seem like one of the angriest, most divided, and destructive years in history, with ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza and a mounting global refugee crisis<\/a>, with more than 120 million people displaced around the world.<\/p>\n Here in the United States, wherever you may be on the political spectrum, it is unlikely you think we are living through the best of times. Since the beginning of the year, more than a million people have lost their jobs<\/a>, the most since 2020 when the Covid pandemic shuttered businesses around the globe. <\/p>\n Collectively, Americans\u2019 confidence in institutions<\/a>, from banks and the media to education and the criminal justice system, are at near all-time lows. Our own government is struggling the most, with fewer than a third of our fellow citizens expressing \u201ca great deal or quite a lot\u201d of confidence in the presidency, Congress, or the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n Add to all of this record-breaking heat waves, wildfires and hurricanes resulting from accelerating climate change<\/a>; increased political violence<\/a>; immigrants of every status worried about detention and deportation<\/a>; anxieties about artificial intelligence; pitched battles over free speech rights; and generally more sturm und drang <\/em>than we are used to experiencing in one revolution around the sun.<\/p>\n If you want to look for the struggles and problems around us, you\u2019ll find them easily enough. It\u2019s not hard to look back on this year, or any year really, and find plenty to regret, mourn, and seethe about. <\/p>\n The night, it would seem, is far from over.<\/p>\n And\u2026<\/p>\n If you choose, instead of or in addition to that dark soul gazing, to seek out strengths, virtues, accomplishments large and small, and acts of simple human kindness, I assure you, they are all around us as well.<\/p>\n As bad as things may sometimes seem, it\u2019s also not hard to look back and find plenty to celebrate, uplift, and sooth.<\/p>\n For example:<\/p>\n So today, on Winter Solstice, and with only a week or so remaining in 2025, should you be optimistic or pessimistic about the state of the world and our future?<\/p>\n Well, you get to choose, but consider this:<\/p>\n How you view and describe the world, or your particular corner of it, really does go a long way toward creating it, for yourself and those around you.<\/p>\n And if you think your particular circumstances, or even the circumstances of the entire country or world right now are simply too dire for silver linings, please think again.<\/p>\n In 1946, Viktor Frankl published Man\u2019s Search for Meaning<\/em><\/a>, a chronicle of his experience as a concentration camp inmate at Auschwitz during the Second World War, and introduction to what he called \u201clogotherapy,\u201d the idea that finding meaning in life is the most powerful and motivating force driving human behavior.<\/p>\n Despite the horrors of the concentration camp and the loss of every family member and friend he had ever known, Frankl discovered that life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. In fact, he determined, \u201clove is the highest goal to which man can aspire,\u201d and even a man who seemingly has nothing left in the world may still experience bliss, and hope for the future, simply contemplating what he loves.<\/p>\n None of this is to suggest that problems don\u2019t exist, that genuine evil or misdeeds should not be recognized and fought against, or that 2025, on balance, may not have seemed worse to you than other years we may have forgotten.<\/p>\n But relentless negativity is draining, and people, organizations, and entire nations move in the direction of their vision.<\/p>\n In the days that remain to us this year, my hope is that we find the resilience, the positivity, and the appreciation of the many good things around us to find our meaning, and to focus our vision, on even better days ahead.<\/p>\n If you are looking for some tools and resources to help you in your optimistic quest, here are a few you may find particularly useful and inspiring:<\/p>\n\n
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