A meditation on the year to come

A mountain in the Eiger valley, Switzerland.

So we've just experienced one of the hardest years in the past 50. The world is still reeling, but we have reasons to hope that our lives on this planet will get better–much, much better–in 2021. Entering the new year, I'm offering this brief meditation (a technique that I would have dismissed in years past, but that I've discovered during the pandemic) with my hopes for better times ahead. Vaccines will soon free us, at long last, from the prison of social distancing that the virus has imposed on the entire population. Emerging from our months of isolation, what will we do first? Next?

Let's imagine, as we meditate, that we will travel, as many of us desperately long to do. On a train, or a plane, or just in a car, finally going somewhere far away with a close companion, with no masks required. Viewing the sights, taking photos, eating at a crowded restaurant, or just walking through a shopping district filled with people. Enjoying the freedom that we took for granted for our whole lives, until the pandemic shut everything down in March of 2020. Sipping an Aperol spritz on a terrace with a scenic mountain view.

Everything we've lost will return again. Let's imagine, closing our eyes for a few moments, what we'll do once we get beyond these last months of the pandemic, once we are free again. Anything is possible, and the future will be better.