All Social Commentary | kenisms

Watch Your Back, It Ain’t Over Yet

Posted on November 23, 2021 by kwundrow

Just when you think you’ve done everything right, the other shoe drops. That is exactly where I was a little over three weeks ago. I had both vaccinations and my booster. I had masked everywhere I was asked to and even in some places it hadn’t been required. I stayed six feet away from virtually everyone and had played the game of chicken every time I was out for a walk, most of the time being the first to veer off to the street. In short, I had followed the rules. A day after receiving my booster, I attended a meeting and forty eight hours later, the first symptoms began. Of course at the time, I was in denial. This was just another seasonal cold and I would be better by morning. But morning came and more symptoms appeared and by nightfall it was clear that something more was going on. The next morning I got tested, as I am sure you all have at some point during this pandemic, out of caution or maybe a little fear. By that evening my taste was gone and I spent a sleepless night fighting a fever and anxiously awaiting my test results. “Your Covid-19 Test results: POSITIVE.” I read that email multiple times, willing it to change to negative or at least “sort of positive”, but every time I opened the email, the message was depressingly the same. It was 5:30 in the morning and calling the people I had been with, would have to wait till at least dawn. I had dutifully made the list the night before in preparation for the calls I now would have to make. Thankfully it was a short list, but they were people who were so very important in my life, a couple who are among our best friends, my daughter and son-in-law, as well as our two grandchildren, and of course my wife who upon hearing the results, asked me to read the email a few hundred times more.

Let’s talk about the Covid-19 cycle of emotions that I , and I assume most people who have experienced this, went through; Guilt – Shame – Frustration / Fear – Anger

Guilt, the first emotion. I am now about to call people I love, to tell them that I have contracted this beast and that because we were together during that period of time when I may have been shedding the virus, they should probably be tested. I also have to call the organizer of the courses I am scheduled to teach starting in three days. Schedules will need to be rearranged, delayed, or possibly cancelled. I am now impacting hundreds of people scheduled to attend these sessions. But lest I lose focus, it is the loved ones I was with whom I might have unwittingly infected that weighs on me the most. I will now anxiously await the results of their tests.

Shame, the next emotion to deal with. This is a very publicized plague. We have been told time and time again that it shows no favorites. None the less, I am now ashamed. What did I do wrong or what did I not do enough of? How could I have been more diligent and avoided this? No matter what people who find out are telling me, this shame runs deep.

Frustration was my next emotion and at least this helped to reduce some of the guilt and shame. I HAD done everything right, or at least as right as humanly possible. I should have waited at least a few days before attending that meeting in person. I could have given it a bit more time to boost up my immunity. For me this was just frustration, the symptoms were far reduced from what they could have been had I not been vaccinated and I was already beginning to feel a bit better by the time I reached day three. For others, less fortunate, the frustration would have been replaced by fear. I couldn’t do much other than to be isolated in my own home and this lack of ability to be “normal” was frustrating.

Eventually, one reaches the final stage. As I began to regain my strength and even had some of my taste start to return, the anger sets in. Why did this happen, and why did it happen to me? Is there a responsibly irresponsible individual out there who gave this gift to me? And why is this pandemic hanging on in the first place? Isn’t it getting tired of closing businesses, laying off employees, filling hospital beds, killing hundreds of thousands? Anger, if controlled, expressed without action, can be at least cathartic. In my case, it at least reduced the stranglehold the other emotions had on me. I might be able to heal, both inside and out.

But it is time to switch gears. It has been just over three weeks and I am feeling much better, but far more importantly, no one around me, none of my loved ones, none of my friends were infected. Within a day, thanks to rapid testing, everyone’s tests came back negative. What a huge relief. I can’t imagine the alternative. Maybe now there might even be room for a little humor. When this first came on and I had lost my taste, my daughter teased me. I have not had a sense of smell since I was thirty years old, none, nada. Her thought was how about maybe the virus doesn’t have a vested interest in whether it’s turning smell off or on, just flipping the switch. Great possibility, but not the reality. Still no smell. And please, spare me the “if you can’t smell, then” ideas. Pretty sure I’ve heard them all and I will add this, when it came to changing my children’s diapers, I may not have had the joy of smell, but I wasn’t blind and the mind can be very creative.

So that you don’t worry about my sense of humor recovering, I thought I’d leave you with the following:

Five things I mastered thanks to the Pandemic

1. How to coordinate your mask with your wardrobe. This is important as no one wants to see a less than stylish look and would rather have it be, at its finest, a statement piece. I may have to make a point of attending masked balls in the future just to get use out of my extensive mask collection. Shout out to Annette for getting mine started.

2. Corona Virus and Corona Beer are two different things. You don’t have to taste test here, trust me. I, like so many others, after month two of the pandemic, wondered if and when Corona Beer would change its name.

3. How to Zoom, Google Meet, and Go Webinar Workshop like a pro. Remember the early days of the pandemic, when the two statements uttered over and over were, “you’re muted Frank” and “for God’s sake, put some pants on.”

4. How to celebrate Christmas with the family in the driveway and make it look natural. As one Jimmy Buffet song goes, “it’s twenty degrees and the hockey games on.” Thanks to a patio heater I drove a hundred miles to obtain (the last one they had), we managed to last three hours before we broke up the festivities and sent our two daughter’s families back to their nice warm homes. Here the shout out goes to Eli whose very useful and much used firepit still resides on our patio.

And #5….How to measure six feet accurate to within an inch without the use of a ruler. Pretty much speaks for itself!

I am hoping my readers have stayed healthy and that maybe, just maybe, you are enjoying Thanksgiving at home, inside, warm, and with your family. And for that matter, anyone else in your bubble. Stay safe, but find ways to keep enjoying life.

Advice for my Younger Self

Posted on October 18, 2021 by kwundrow

I have often thought about how I got to where I have ultimately arrived. I can tell you that the route was not always straight forward. There were many times where the road forked and I had to make a decision. Life is like that. Those who know me, know that this next statement is hard for me to say out loud, but in looking back, I believe that I have been successful. I never got the chance to travel into space as my ten-year old self dreamed and schemed about. I didn’t become famous like the people you hear about on the evening news or read about in a magazine. I did not create an invention or build a business that made me rich and famous. But I was a recognized teacher for twenty-five years and impacted some five-thousand students one way or the other. I started a tiny business and sold it to a small business that I helped grow into a much larger one. And while I was there, I helped hundreds of couples fashion their financial goals and built plans to help them reach those goals. I think that those achievements equal success just as much as traveling in space, or creating a famous persona would have.

Recently, as I was concluding a mentoring session with a soon to be successful business entrepreneur, the client posed this question, “If you could give advice to your thirty-one year old self, what would it be?” The question floored me, not because it was unique, seems every famous person has been asked some version of this lately, but rather, that it was being asked of me and secondly, that I had no immediate response. I had to think about it and that started the whole process of considering whether or not I had been successful and what were the important pieces I’d learned along the way?

Eventually I settled on the fact that success had come one accomplishment at a time. It was a journey made up of the opportunities I seized and the decisions I made. It depended on my following a set of core beliefs and the characteristics that came about because of them. I realized that if the answer to his question would be useful, it had to be something I have always believed in, keeping it simple. Again, those who truly know me are rolling their eyes right now for I am not a man of few words, but, in the end, I have always been able to simplify the concepts.
With that in mind, I broke it down to three key pieces of advice for my thirty-one year old self and also for my young entrepreneur.

First, I would tell my thirty-one year old self to take responsibility for his actions. Consider the outcomes of the decision to be made and own your mistake if it doesn’t work. We cannot always consider everyone else’s stake before our own, but if we just do it most of the time, the result is trust. Trust leads to relationships and relationships lead to success. The flip side of that argument is ownership of the mistakes you will inevitably make. As hard as it is to admit you were wrong, it is the only move that will begin to restore trust and earn forgiveness. It is what truly demonstrates that you can be humble and it is from that ability to be humble, that true recognition of your worth becomes clear.

The second piece of advice I would give my younger self is to always be ready to take risk. I need to be careful here, no pun intended. While I believe that taking risk is necessary to ultimately achieving success, it is vitally important that you at least seek to control the risk. You cannot eliminate the risk and still have reward, but you might be able to limit it or at least provide a safety net if you should fail. When you leave your teaching career to pursue an entirely new endeavor, you will be taking a big risk. You will risk a pension, a guaranteed salary, and great benefits, but you will have some control. You will have developed the skill set to handle the new position, but even more important, you have a new idea that will build the relationships you need to survive. When we are young, we tend to be risk takers, but they are based in a sense on immortality and tend to be physical risks. As we age, our ability to take risk diminishes, thanks in part to our experiences and a tendency to negatively over think the outcomes. I would tell my thirty-one year old self to keep taking measured risks. Do not let opportunities pass you by just because you fear the risk of failure when in fact you might be risk missing the opportunity for success.

My final piece of advice would be to always seek perspective. In life you will deal too often with people who lack perspective. They will be convinced that their view of the world is the only view. In that lack of perspective, they will miss the big picture and often the chance for change that would have made them successful. Without perspective, they have very little information for making their decisions. They lock ourselves into what worked before and miss what is needed now. Without perspective, you will never hear someone else’s great idea, and you will never hear the logic in the counter argument. Perspective keeps you fresh, non judgmental, and open to new ideas; those same ideas that just might bring you success.

I never made it to space, but maybe I inspired a student along the way to finish my trip. I never built a major business, but maybe my mentoring helped someone else build one. I never made the cover of Time Magazine, but maybe I inspired someone to dream and their dreams will one day land them on the cover.

Don’t Miss the Moment

Posted on September 8, 2021 by kwundrow

There are moments in our lives that happen but once. They are often filled with emotion, sometimes good and sometimes not so good. I want to speak to those moments filled with the good emotions.

I recently got to officiate my own daughter’s wedding. And yes, it was filled with emotion. There were many moments that day. There was the walk down the aisle. The moment I had to switch from father of the bride to officiant. The exchange of the vows, first dance, father daughter dance. The day was literally filled from beginning to end with these moments, but the one that nearly escaped me was the most beautiful moment of the day.

I had become overly busy with helping to keep the wedding on schedule. This I believed was my duty as the officiant. There were lots of questions coming my way about when to start, where to stand, how to present a particular reading, and the like. Suddenly, the groom was beckoning me. As I approached he told me that Kathryn, my daughter and bride to be, needed me. My thought, soon to be one I would regret, was what might possibly be wrong. I was totally unprepared mentally for what followed. As I rounded the corner, she was standing there in the middle of the side lawn away from everyone else. The sun shone behind her and created this halo effect as she stood there, stunning in her wedding gown. I had to collect myself as I realized what I was witnessing. She told me softly that she wanted me to be the first to see her. As we embraced, I knew in that moment that I was the luckiest dad in the world. My little girl was all grown up, about to be married, and still wanted me to be the first in her life at that moment. I was so busy with the process of the day that I nearly missed the meaning of the day. I almost missed the moment, one I could never have had again.

How many moments have you missed in your life? If the answer is none, you are a better person than I. If you can’t say you’ve never missed a moment, pledge to never miss another. Promise yourself to always be in the moment, to savor the emotions that come with it, and to hang onto the memory that moment creates. You don’t get but one chance to go through life. Don’t miss the moments it’s made up of.

From the Mouth of a Child

Posted on July 18, 2021 by kwundrow

Just the other day we were returning from our trip up to the family cottage. Having stopped at the Big M for a treat, my daughter asked Jackson if he could wish something for the earth what would it be? Jackson never hesitated in his response, “I would wish that cars and all engines stop using gas. It makes global warming and that is bad for the earth. And someday that will be bad for me.”

Jackson is seven. Think about that. He doesn’t question the science. He doesn’t ignore the obvious and at seven he wants to do something about it. I could only marvel at his response and at the same time wish that some of our leaders could be half as wise as he was in that moment. His generation will inherit the actions we take and at present, we still resist. We balk at the changes required because we think of the effect on jobs and even more so the cost. But I will tell you that our inactivity will cost far more in the future, provided that in the future we even have the option.

We must take responsibility for what we have done. My generation is guilty of ignoring the warnings, of not making the effort to be even a little more responsible with our choices, of electing leaders with our wallets instead of our ethics. We must be far more serious about recycle, reclaim, and reuse practices. We must, simply put, ACT. And we must do it before it is too late.

We owe it to our children, to our grandchildren. I don’t want Jackson asking me ten years from now why I hadn’t done anything when I knew it was my responsibility and not that of a seven year old who doesn’t even have a vote. It is not too late. From the mouths of our children comes a plea to save the earth. We must save it so that they might have a future filled with all the bounty we have enjoyed. Do it for Jackson and all the Jacksons so that their wish may still come true.

Maybe Covid-19 Wasn’t All That Bad

Posted on July 18, 2021 by kwundrow

We should always look for the silver lining, and when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I started thinking today about all the changes Covid-19 brought about and I started to realize that as bad as the pandemic was, there were things I accomplished. I finally got that Little Library built. During the pandemic, it became my wife’s total focus. We now have neighborhood children putting in book requests to their favorite librarian, Ms. Debi. The treat bags and notes ay have something to do with her popularity.

And there are all the things I learned, useful things. Top on the list would be Zoom. Before Covid-19, I would resist Skype calls, Duo calls, and any other virtual calls. Then came the pandemic and suddenly, virtual meetings, virtual gatherings, even virtual game nights, became the norm. I am proud to say, I am now a Zoom, Google Meets, and Microsoft Teams wizard. Seems strange to say I am a virtual expert. Does that mean, not really, just imaginary?

Another learned process, making wearing a mask a fashion statement. I admit that when it started, I wasn’t too stylish. But as time went on we all got pretty clever and fashionable. We wore masks sporting our favorite logos, coordinated our masks with our ensemble, and even found ways to make them almost sexy. I for one, sort of miss donning my various masks now that I have been vaccinated. Thanks to Covid-19’s mask wearing mandates, I will be better prepared to rob a bank if I ever decide to go rogue.

And then there is the improvements to my office décor. Pre pandemic, I hadn’t really thought about my shelves. Once I started Zooming (is that a word?), I started seeing it as my backdrop on my zoom calls. Time to clean up my act. Off to storage, went a lot of the memorabilia, unread books, and just piles of paper and files. Thank you Covid-19!, my office is quite impressive these days.

Six feet used to be a rough estimate that was anywhere from way too short to ridiculously long. A couple of months of pandemic rules, and I can now nail six feet to within a couple inches. I feel like a walking ruler. Want to know how long that putt was?, I got it. Need that board cut to six feet?, leave that tape measure in your tool belt. Admit it, how many times during the last year did you find yourself moving that extra three inches to put six feet between you and that other person.

There were a lot of other little lessons learned. I have now mastered the art of separating the wafer section from the wine pod in those little communion cups. I discovered that you can actually party outside in the middle of winter with snow falling as long as you have that fire pit going and the now all important patio heater. I actually drove seventy-five miles to a Lowes to find mine. I am even looking forward to this fall when I can fire it back up and party. I might even invite more than ten people.

I know it wasn’t at all good, but it wasn’t all bad either. I have developed skills that were clearly lacking and as an added bonus, I now know every dog and every dog walker in the neighborhood. Admittedly, I will see if I recognize them without their masks.

And one final observation, it seems that as we learned to stand six feet apart, we somehow all grew a little closer.

Becoming a Dad

Posted on June 20, 2021 by kwundrow

I became a father on April 21, 1984. Bailey was born that morning after a long previous day and night of waiting for her. We had to make a decision that morning to continue trying or to consider a C Section delivery. That decision was taken away when it became clear we had to do an emergency surgery to bring Bailey into our world.

At the time, becoming a father was a scary thing. I was worried that I would not be a good father. I thought I might be ill prepared for the role and thus not able to do what was needed to be the father Bailey would need. This was a huge responsibility I was about to take on and was I willing to make the life style changes that it would require. As I look back on that fear, I realize how selfish that was. I was more concerned about me than what I actually needed to be concerned about.

The surgery was successful and within moments of the delivery, Bailey was in my arms and my world and my worries changed. In that moment, as her tiny hand found my finger, my world became her world and I transitioned from worried father to fully engaged dad. It now all made sense. To be a father simply took the act, but being a dad was a gift that was bestowed upon you by that moment you connected with the life you had helped create. Of course my life would change. I had a whole new person to share it with. That fear of responsibility was replaced by the excitement of being part of a whole new journey.

I spent the next several hours bonding with and falling in love with our little baby girl as my wife recovered from the surgery. These were precious moments that shaped the rest of my relationship, moments where I learned the difference between being a father and being a dad. By the time my wife was able to hold our child, her life was all ready being mapped out. She would be given adventures to make her strong. She would be given opportunities to grow in every possible way. She would be given support in whatever choices she made. She would be loved.

Seven years later, my wife and I would welcome the birth of our second child, this time by natural delivery but no less dramatic. I would be given a chance to do it all again and this time to help my older daughter become the big sister. Kathryn was welcomed into our world on April 26, 1991 and just as her sister became part of our plans, so too did Kathryn become part of our family plans. Like her sister before her, she would be encouraged to find her own space, to be part of our adventures, to be loved for who she was and would become. To be honest, I think Kathryn took her role to be the one who would make the adventures bigger.

It is with purpose that I have recounted this story on Father’s Day. It was and will always be my greatest honor to have been a father who understands what it takes to be a dad.

Divide and Conquer …. or?

Posted on June 6, 2021 by kwundrow

The title refers to a military tactic. If you want the upper hand in a battle, you divide the enemy, militarily or culturally. We have become a nation, thanks to an election and a pandemic, that is ideologically divided. My question is, are we willing to work on a repair or will we accept being divided and conquered?

Over the past decade, our government has become fractured. As of the last several years, it has been reduced to you are a conservative or you are a liberal. The result of this fracturing is a two party system that for the most part does not represent the general population that elected them and at the very least has become an ineffective governing body. Now some may argue that Congress still passes legislation, but the legislation is along party and unfortunately, money lines. The art of compromise for the good of the nation seems absent.

Meanwhile, we as citizens and voters, are becoming polarized. Thanks to social media, we get our news from everywhere and anywhere and we feel free to verbalize our opinions as beliefs we expect others to adopt. We are losing our civility at a time when it is needed more than ever. The pandemic taught us what isolation felt like. Some embraced it while others grew angry, looking for someone to blame. The election embroiled us in a nasty national conversation, further fueling our anger and grief. The end result, is a division that grows wider with each angry social media confrontation and every too hastily shared meme or post. We are divided and ready to be conquered. In this battle, the enemy is not always obvious, not even some other country or ideology. The enemy is us. How wide do we leave this division grow before the distance between is too far to ever cross.

We must get back to spending more time listening TO each other than the amount of time we spend talking AT each other. The vast majority of Americans are not simply one side or the other. We hold some beliefs that are conservative while we hold others that are liberal. The truth is we are moderates caught in a struggle to make us one or the other, leaving us no ground in the middle. But the solution is simple, we begin to listen. We get back to respecting our differences. We stop claiming that everything is political. It is only political when we use arguing our causes as an excuse for not listening. Politicians make issues political, we do not have to. I fear that if we leave party politicians to steer us, we will not be able to get back to any kind of normal.

Let’s put the election behind us. Let’s leave the pandemic to history. Let’s get back to civilized discussions about what comes next and what positive role we can play. We must seek to choose leaders at all levels, who recognize the need for rational discussions on what they as leaders and we as a people can do to solve the litany of problems that face our nation. We must make our decisions based on humanity and not politics. Choose to listen for our commonalities so that we can respect our differences. Let us choose unified and stronger over divided and conquered.

Unity….But How?

Posted on January 18, 2021 by kwundrow

Yesterday I wrote my optimistic blog. I talked about new opportunities and not dragging the past with us but rather living in the now and for the future. I wrote that opportunities exist if we are willing to look for them. But I also spoke to the divisiveness that permeates our everyday news and conversations. Safe to say that many of us have even lost friends to that rift that has been created. So how do we heal that wound? How do we bring a divided nation even just a little bit back together. Much of what I hear blames our political parties and the leaders that seem at odds. Many would blame the media and its at times biased reporting. Still others lay the blame on social media and its innate ability to flame the hateful rhetoric.

The truth of the matter is that though some of the blame lies with those three scape goats, much of it lies with us. We ARE the media for we can tune in the station that voices our opinion while tuning out the rest. WE elected those politicians, not just with our votes but also by the products and services we purchased from those same corporations that funded their campaigns. We ARE social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and all of the rest are merely the pen and paper we use to publish our ideas, and all too often our disinformation, slander, and inadvertently, our hate.

I have thought about these things and have come close to writing this piece on many occasions only to have the words escape me or the moment pass. My solution will likely be thought to be too simple, but aren’t the best solutions usually the simplest? What we need is to first acknowledge to be true those things I stated above. Next, we need to decide that we are not satisfied with who or where we are and finally, having realized that, we act. We act in one unified voice. We state the positive. We check ourselves before we speak, before we write, before we like, before we share. If we want our leaders to hear our voice, we must speak clearly and rationally. We must send the message that we think America can be better. We are the greatest nation on earth, but we CAN do better. We see the inequities within our society but we look to politicians and companies to fix them. They either cannot or will not do this. We must be engaged in and modeling that equality. We cannot stand silent when those that would abuse those rights, do so. We must collectively be kind, fair, and deliberate in the messages we post, in the conversations we have, especially within those groups where we find the safety of anonymity, and also in the actions we model for our children and grandchildren. If we are to be the media, let us make sure that we are not the fake news.

The list of issues we can address as a nation are many. The task of fixing or improving them can be expensive. The effort to accomplish them may seem herculean. But the process is simple at its basic level. We need to speak in one unified and positive voice. We need to be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve our ultimate goals. And we need to act as individuals to start the movement towards acting as a community. All I ask is that we examine ourselves and then, where we find ourselves wanting, commit to making changes. One conversation, one like, one post, one share at a time. The little things added together will make big changes happen. Commit then to unity.

What Just Flew By?

Posted on January 17, 2021 by kwundrow

2020 is behind us. The remanents, unfortunately may not be completely gone. But, we have reason to be optimistic. We have a vaccine, for some already here and well deserved, for others, moving closer every day. The election is over. There is divisiveness that is still hanging on but we can, as reasonable people, accept our role in the healing, and be the friends and fellow citizens we all need to be. Though our politicians may struggle with their roles, we don’t need to. We can move on and do the work of showing them that we are ALL Americans and deserving of nonpartisan representation. We are the Country. We are the Democracy. We are the individual drive that leads to collective progress. And finally, we have for the most part, adjusted to our new normal and have been creative in the process. We have figured out how to make our celebrations smaller and at the same time more intimate. We have created ways to move our get togethers outside or, alternatively, inside our computer screens via Zoom. I have actually visited with friends I might not have seen any other way. Necessity IS the mother of invention.

Don’t bring the old year with you when the NEW year offers new opportunities. Don’t spend your time dwelling on the past when we have the chance to rebirth optimism by looking forward. I choose to welcome 2021. I will be optimistic for all the reasons I just mentioned, but even more so for the fact that when you look for the opportunities you will find them. That when you believe the future holds promise, you can find it. That we have always been a nation that can heal and grow stronger. Quoting a friend, “When you look for the good everything gets better.”

And one last thing. As I started writing this yesterday, I was anxiously awaiting my Green Bay Packers debut in the play-offs. Never knowing how things can unfold, I still found myself being optimistic….. nervous, but optimistic. This morning, as I am finishing this blog, I am reveling in the fact that we, yes we, won yesterday and now we can wait anxiously, but with optimism for next weekend. That is if you are a Packer fan. It IS a new year, and anything is possible. Believe in the possibilities. Be part of the healing. Celebrate our planet’s just completed trip around the sun and look forward to the next. Look, we just passed Mars!

The Christmas Carol

Posted on December 13, 2020 by kwundrow

Thanks to the pandemic cancelling the usual Christmas Season get togethers, my wife and I have had a lot of time to watch movies. I will admit that many of them have been Hallmark or Hallmark inspired films. If you follow my blog, you will undoubtely have seen my attempt at writing a Hallmark script. Still no word from Hallmark as to when they might consider making that one. We have also made sure to include the classics in our watch list. To that end, we have already checked off Holiday Inn, (appalled at the racial undertones), White Christmas, The Santa Claus, and last night’s movie, The Christmas Carol.

The Christmas Carol holds special meaning for me. This was the movie I would fall asleep to in my dad’s arms Christmas Eve. Later in life it became the movie during which my children would do the same thing with me. It was a important part of my family’s traditions and became a big part of my daughters’ traditions. Some day I hope to make it a tradition with my grandchildren. For this reason, The Christmas Carol is by far my favorite Christmas movie and in truth one of my all time favorite movies of any genre. There are many versions of this movie and rightfully so because it is such a classic. Through the years, it has been remade countless times, but fortunately the message has remained basically unchanged. Though I have several versions that I favor, due to a fear of having to debate their merit with my readers and thus missing the point of this blog, I will tell you I watched YOUR favorite version last night, whichever one that was.

What is it that makes this movie so classic? I suppose we could credit the author of the book it is derived from, Charles Dickens. That alone would make it classic. But it is the message that sets it apart and makes Christmas time its perfect setting. The movie tells the tale of how the lure of riches had led a person to a complete lack of empathy for his fellow man, leaving him empty and angry. As the Spirits of Christmas past, present, and future revealed the flaws of Ebenezer Scrooge’s choices, it reminds us of the importance of the decisions we make. As Scrooge faces the darkest possible endings to his life’s legacy, he utters these words: “Are these the shadows of things that WILL BE or are they the shadows of what MAY BE?” He clings to a potential redemption hidden between the lines of the answer; if things remain unchanged then these shadows will remain unaltered. There was that hope that if he could change, then perhaps the past could be erased and those shadows coud be altered.

This movie offers a message of hope for us all. It is its redemptive nature that inspires us to become the best version of ourselves. Whether we are satisfied with the life we have fashioned or whether we wish for more, we can always improve as long as we alter those behaviors of the past. No matter my mood going into the viewing of this movie, I always emerge from it renewed and filled with hope that not only can I change, but so can the people around me and the conditions we all live in. There has never been a year where we need this message more than this one. The year 2020 has been determined to leave us divided, distressed and anxious. We face the economic stress and the general fear generated by the pandemic. We face a culture of continued racism, some blatant, some covert, that leaves us divided and less than the great country we should be. We generally question our ability to accomplish a collective effort to make things better, all too often failing to take even the first steps we could and need to as individuals.

The Christmas Carol reminds me that I can change; that we can change. We can be better for the collective whole, but first we must be part of the change. We must vow to not waste any message of hope. We must act on that hope, individually to start and then collectively to continue. 2020 does not have to be the shadow of things to come but rather a reason to make the changes that will make 2021 the year we heal. Christmas is a season of hope and renewal, a reminder that the past is the past and that the future has not yet been written.

So go get your favorite beverage, maybe pop some popcorn, and then put on a DVD of the movie or find it on streaming, but view The Christmas Carol through my eyes and pledge to be the Spirit of Christmas Future.

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