The New Beginnings of 2021
New Year’s Eve, 31.12.2020. I stood on a rooftop in the middle of an Italian city with a glass of Champagne in my hand. As soon as the clock hit 00:00, we started seeing fireworks flying high from every single rooftop around us. More and more, and more… although this was forbidden.
It felt like a little revolution like everyone around us raised their middle fingers to the government and signaled, “We want to celebrate in our way, and you, guys, won’t stop us.”
Rituals and Transitions
We, humans, love rituals. We need them. Rituals help us mark the end (death) of something outdated: life chapters, years, relationships, believes, and expectations. Rituals help us to welcome the beginnings: the birth of a child, a new company, a new decade.
If with the “endings,” everything is quite clear — the story has ended, and we buried them, the beginnings appear quite scary. They might be exciting, yes, yet, the unknown of the beginning is frightening to us. We, humans, want certainty. We need stability for our mental health. Beginnings offer us none.
The ritual itself is a so-called “the neutral zone,” the in-between. With alcohol, decoration, food, and friends around, we forget the losses and the wins of the previous year and still rest before the next chapter.
2020 was a written book for us even in November this year, and now we just waited for it to end.
This week 2021, has really begun for us, and it has way too many things in stock that we can not predict. We know at some point we will get to the point where we are sending our children to school, the restaurants are open, and our business life is on the rise again. But the path to recovery will likely be long and uneven. And what this path will ask from us, we also do not know.
The arrival
I don’t want to sound negative, 2021 will definitely be a year of happy moments, successes, improvements, and achievement. Our human brain first sees a threat in new beginnings; it automatically counts everything that can go wrong and what we can not control, predict, and influence.
Today’s “weekly thoughts” is not about tools or habits or even a mindset. It is about being real where you landed this week.
I want to tell you that it is normal to feel a bit lost and uncertain this week; it is also normal to doubt. It is normal to have low energy because you are dealing with anxiety internally, even if you do not notice it.
It is normal to want it all right this week because we hoped it would be different from our last year's last work week. Just keep moving…and be kind to yourself.
