Boy, I sure hope (insert year) is better than (insert previous year)!

I've noticed this on Facebook over the past few years. Every December, people start putting up their "I sure hope next year is better than this last year!" as their status updates. In 2009, everyone was hoping it would be better than their 2008's. Same goes for the dawn of 2010. If I would have believed the hype as 2010 was approaching, I would have thought that 2009 may have been the worst year in history. It seemed like almost everybody was complaining about their 2009 like it was the worst thing that had ever happened to them. I have a couple of responses to this.

First off - If the previous year was so bad for you, it's up to you to make the next year better. Granted, I know that a lot of bad things happen to people that are beyond our control. But how one feels and reacts to adversity is all a matter of perception. Kimberly and I tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant through the better part of 2007. We failed numerous times, despite fertility drugs and procedures. However, as 2008 started, we didn't count 2007 as a failure. We didn't say "I sure hope 2008 is better than 2007...what an awful year 2007 was". We just looked forward to the next year in hopes that our efforts would be fruitful. It's all how you choose to look at things.

Secondly - It seems like it's the same people that are posting these things every year. Even if I did believe in the concept of a "bad year", are these people having a "bad three years"? I doubt it. I bet these people are just looking at bad things that happened over the course of these years and deciding that these things will be the focal point of their memory. Did nothing good happen during these three years? I bet it did.

I guess everything goes back to my first point. Be positive. In 2009, our septic system shut down, and we had to completely replace it. It ran in the neighborhood of $10,000 that we had to split between two credit cards. As a result, our monthly credit card statements are still outrageous. We're still feeling the aftershocks of that hit to our finances, and it'll be a loooooong time before that's all paid off. I don't by any means think that 2009 was a bad year, though.

Like I said before, I know things happen that are beyond our control. Things we'd like to forget or have never lived through. These things happen, though. It's up to us as to how we react to them and how we move on.

That being said...I hope 2011 is just as good as 2010, but better than 1978 (because if 1978 was better, I will be bummed that I missed it by not being born yet)