Putting on my “Star Wars” hat for a brief minute, Princess Leia Organa has an empowering quote: “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you see it, you’ll never make it through the night.” You don’t need me to tell you that it’s been a hard year on everyone, and for the longest time, we weren’t sure exactly how long the darkness would last. But now there’s hope in sight; both in the change of administrations a month from now and recently with the vaccines that are starting to be administered around the country.
It’s tempting to think that we can just ease up on the restrictions we’ve been confided to for the past nine months, but the fact of the matter is that we’re not done yet. Let’s not forget that just this past week, we surpassed 300,000 lives lost to COVID-19 in the U.S. We’re in for one hell of a harsh winter if we don’t act responsibly and take this seriously right now, which is why for this last Recommended Analyzing piece for the year, I strongly recommend you read this piece from The Atlantic on hanging on just three more months.
Contributing writer Zeynep Tufekci breaks down evidence as to why it’s so understandable why you want to just be bad and see loved ones beyond a screen again, while just as adequately providing evidence as to why it’s genuinely worth it to hang on just a little while longer. Hope is on the way and it’s bringing with it some long overdue joy that we haven’t felt in a long time. If we can just take into consideration the marshmallow test that we’ve been otherwise failing, we could be resuming a sense of normalcy before the first days of next summer are even here.
So please go give it a read and continue doing whatever is needed to keep yourself and your loved ones safe – especially this winter. Believe in the sun; it’s there, it’s radiant, and it shouldn’t always be visible for you to believe it’s always there.
Lola By The Bay 