To me, the word that describes the quality we as individuals and as New Zealand will most need in 2021 is resilience.
According to Oxford: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.
And according to Cambridge in a bit more personal context: The ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened.
Four areas in particular strike me as needing a healthy dose of resilience.
Reviving the economy of course, and re-establishing our own roles and personal viability in it, recognising that, as favoured as NZ has been, we have not yet felt the full effect of the pandemic.
Addressing the mental distress — for many still latent — delivered by this disruption, recognising that we are already failing — pre-Covid — to address mental health adequately in NZ.
Returning our children and youth to a ‘normal’ educational and developmental environment.
Beginning to cope seriously with climate change, an even larger looming disruption to our current way of life, and one with special significance to our region’s agricultural base. Scientists expect, when all the numbers are crunched, that 2020 will match or more likely exceed 2016 as the hottest year ever recorded.
I don’t intend to elaborate more here, but be assured these are themes BayBuzz intends to address in depth in the coming year.
For now, Happy New Year!
Photo: Taken in California’s Death Valley National Park, August 17, 2020. There have only been two hotter days ever recorded (one in same location and one in Kuwait), but both of those are disputed, so this could be the hottest day ever recorded on Earth according to the US Weather Service.