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…and what have you done?

Maybe the opening line to the classic John Lennon song should actually go “and what have WE done?”.

For this little old voice-over, Christmas is a time for reflection – reflection on what I’ve done, work-wise and on the personal front over the past year, what I was doing and where I was this time last year and then, I usually ask myself the question “is this Christmas any different?”!

Without going into a ton of personal detail, no, it’s not that different.

I’ll still be looking forward to hopefully talking with family and friends in another country several thousand miles away (time-zones and technology permitting) over the several days ascribed to the “Christmas break”, the weather will be cold, “Love Actually” will be on the TV and I’ll probably eat far too many mince pies.

So what, if anything, can we do to change things going forward past this festive season and on into not just a new year, but a new decade.

2020 – the third decade of the 21st Century – how did THAT happen?

It seems not so very long ago we were doing the Millennium countdown and expecting the change of the clocks to cause planes to drop out of the sky and technology to come crashing down around us.

My personal opinion, for what it’s worth, is that we should at least try to be more charitable, tolerant of others whose ideas and philosophies we might not necessarily agree with and pretty much have a mantra I endeavour to keep in the back of my mind, more to the fore at all times:

WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT.

Celebrate those differences.

Now, at Christmas time and as we click over into that newest of years.

Life is incredibly short.

It’s also what you make it and what you make OF it.

There’s so little time to get “stuck in our ways” – especially if those ways are full of intolerance, impatience, annoyance, frustration and regret.

There is no time, or need, to regret because regret lives in the past and we can’t change the past.

Learn from any regrets and try to make sure there’s no need or cause to regret – again.

I wish you all the merriest of Christmases and THE most brilliant, tolerant, understanding, bright, happy and loving of new years…