When the clock strikes midnight every year on December 31st, not only does a new day appear on the horizon, but so does a new year, eliciting hopes from people across the globe. While this pattern of aspirations for an upcoming year occurs every New Year’s Eve, the world could not have been more monumentally wrong on New Year’s Eve 2019.

2020 was 365 days worth of horrible tragedy, immense loss, and adaptation on groundbreaking levels. What felt like a decade’s worth of revolutionary history crammed into one single year left everyone gasping for even an hour of normalcy. 

So, as the New Year’s Eve pattern continued in 2020’s final moments, people created hopes for the new year, but not nearly the same as they have in the past. 

Usually, we create somewhat superficial desires for the approaching year that ultimately will not change our lives immensely. Most times these hopes do not even come true which proves their unimportant qualities. 

The change seen in the hopes for 2021, however, are that they are much deeper and sadly innocent. We are just hoping for a better year — simple as that. There’s a significant yearning for normalcy like being able to show a friendly smile or standing close to someone.  

2021 also brings other innocent wishes like surviving the next year financially, emotionally, or quite literally. Hoping to live through the next year is not what many of us would have considered a common New Year’s wish before 2020. 

Ultimately, these new types of hopes created for 2021 have stemmed from the lessons learned from 2020. Compassion, respect for others, gratitude, and the importance of positivity are examples of valuable lessons extracted from people after being buried for so long by a selfish society. We have been humbled above all else. To make our hopes a reality in 2021 we must acquire and then apply the wisdom learned from undergoing 2020. 

With this hope and gained wisdom, a path can be paved for opportunity. An opportunity to improve, grow from the hurt, or gain back part of what was lost. An opportunity to heal and rebuild. An opportunity to allow our hopes to take flight in a new year. This is in part why there is so much hope for 2021 because it’s a new chance.

11:59 P.M. on December 31st was not just a minute. It was the last minute of agony, destruction, and overwhelming experiences. Of course, nothing changes overnight, so 12:00 A.M. did not bring a sudden cure for 2020’s harm. But it did bring an opportunity, once again, for a new beginning to find the cure. 

While it may be easy to put mental barriers up and not expect our hopes to follow through after they clearly did not in 2020, we must at least try. After all, the creation of hopes for a better tomorrow, regardless whether they are bound to happen or not, allows us to strive for more. Moving forward and planting our feet in new soil is the first way to recover ourselves. 

As we embark into the first days of the new year, let us remember the lessons learned from 2020, and how our humbled selves have developed new forms of hopes not known to us before. Let us embrace the opportunity that has been presented to us by the creation of meaningful hopes and obtained understanding of the key aspects of life. And let us rise from the ashes of 2020 to grow as people in our new hope. 

Every New Year’s Eve creates a new chapter, but this year’s hopefully created an entirely new series filled with a beautiful new narrative.