One person on my blog threatened suicide of 2020 wasn’t better than in 2019. Another said she would get a therapist just thinking about impeachment and the 2020 elections, which are on track to be angry and disturbing.

To me, this is a time for perspective, for some history, and some faith and hope. There were many unhappy things about 2019, but many beautiful things as well. Sadly, our culture doesn’t like much good news; it isn’t as profitable as bad news. Argument and fear sell, hope, and faith do not.

If you know your history, as I try to do (there is way too much for me to know all of it), then 2019 may not be the worst year ever, or close. Look up 1862 or 1940 or 1918 or 1929.

We face something new and terrifying with climate change, but I will be frank about my feelings: The human race does not seem capable to me of meeting this challenge, I will do anything within my power to help Mother Earth.

But I have accepted that the human species does not have the gifts or sensibilities to act collectively to save the earth. It’s my form of Radical Acceptance. My prayer is for the generation behind me to do better than we did.

It surely could happen.

I won’t get to see it, but many sociologists think life as we know it is headed for extinction in a couple of hundred years. Few of them want to say it out loud. I hope not, but I can’t say I disagree.

This may sound gloomy, but it is liberating for me. I will focus on what I can do, not on what I can’t do.

I am not going to permit this specter to ruin the time I have on the earth: more trouble, more good. Neither will allow the left or the right to ruin my life, peace of mind, or quality of life. My life is too precious to watch Fox News or CNN and have my emotional life defined by either.

And the crisis facing our planet is just too overwhelming for me to take on, I can only hope to find someone worthy of following.

My core idea is sound: it is better to do good than argue about what good is.

Life, said Grandma Moses, is what you make of it, and I intend to make a lot out of 2020. I will write lots of hopefully thoughtful blog posts, take some good photos, love my good wife and care for her, also, care for my beautiful dogs and donkeys and sheep, spread joy and comfort at the Mansion and Bishop Maginn High School for as long as either place will permit me.

I will work hard to be a better human being, something I pray and meditate on every morning. I’ve come a long way; I have a long way to go.

I don’t aspire to be a saint, just a good man trying to be a better man. I think that might be doable, and on the right scale for me — a small act of great awareness.

I will continue to train and raise Zinnia as a therapy dog and keep working with the good-hearted Fate. Bud is happy with life as is. This week, I will think more about what I can do to make 2002 richer and fuller and more meaningful than 2019.

That won’t be easy. 2019 was pretty sweet for me in so many ways. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better year in my lengthening life.

It seems silly to me to make wishes for the New Year. I make wishes every day. For a whole year, I’d rather step back and think more ambitiously.

And I will make 2020 even better, watch. I wish the same for you. Please come along for the ride.