Hey, 2021, We forgive you!

I’m ready to be done with 2021. And so are you.

But first, we have some unfinished business to take care of. And I don’t mean the usual taking stock.

At this time of year, we always look back. At the missed opportunities. The ways we could have behaved more skillfully. The love affairs gone wrong. And if we’re lucky, we also remember the times we brought joy to others. The moments we were brave.

We’re too groovy these days to make resolutions. Instead, we set intentions for the coming year. We vow to practice doing better. Being kinder. And lighter of foot on the planet.

But this year, the usual rituals are not enough.

Collective trauma has harshed our chi. Covid has taken too much. Despite our Stoic principles, our Buddha nature, or the power of positive thinking, it’s hard to celebrate this calendar turn as either Happy or New.

So, here’s what I propose: Instead of staging a hollow celebration—or ignoring the day altogether—why not open our hearts and forgive?

Yes, 2021, was a bitch. But if we can let go of our resentment and our anger—our loneliness and our grief— we might all be better off.

In his book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, the poet-philosopher David Whyte calls forgiveness a skill. Which means, we all can learn to do it. Not just as 2022 approaches, but all year long.

Forgiveness is…a beautiful way of shaping the mind to a future we want for ourselves, an admittance that if forgiveness comes through understanding, and if understanding is just a matter of time and application, then we might as well begin forgiving right at the beginning of any drama rather than putting ourselves through the full cycle of festering, incapacitation, reluctant healing and eventual blessing.

So, how about this?

Instead of making a list of intentions or resolutions, why not make a list of the wounds we’d like to heal. And then, rather than papering them over with amnesia or amnesty, we might try to do as Whyte says.

Close in on the nature of the hurt itself… and reimagine our relation to it.

Allow ourselves to be gifted by a story that is larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft.

After all the trauma and drama, it feels like cheating to just write off 2021 as a really bad year.

I’m all for learning to let go.

But before we do, let’s find it in our hearts to forgive.