Happy New Year and Welcome to 2019.
The video above is Google’s Year in Search video for 2018. Compiled within it are news stories, trends, sports, movies all in celebration of 2018. Essentially, it’s a feel-good video to highlight the positive amidst the hardships of the world as we know it today.
There is no denying that every day there are endless things that bring us down. School, relationship struggles, job troubles, bad influences, money, traffic, news, and the list goes on. Personally, I know a lot of people that say 2018 was a train wreck, followed by the ideology that 2019 will be better. The reasoning being that the New Year signifies a clean slate. A restart button. A chance to leave whatever held us back in 2018 in the past. Deceitfully, the New Year comes with all that and a season of New Year’s resolutions.
The unfortunate reality is that despite the new year, bad things are still going to happen. Life, inevitably, is still going to be hard. That’s not said that to be a bummer or to leave us hopeless for the future. Regardless, it is often more difficult to see the ‘good’ in a situation right away. This has proved to be true in the political turmoil, the all too frequent shooting massacres, and the natural disasters that have plagued the news feeds.
It is in those moments, however, that people make the decision to help. They step up to the challenge and lend a hand to a human in need. It was seen as teams worked relentlessly to get the soccer team out of the cave. As the little boy took the initiative to feed the homeless. As humans, we helped each other.
In the video we saw good of 2018, but I think we saw more than that. There was empowerment. The concept that together, we are a part of something greater than ourselves. All that to say, there is something incredibly impressive about being united by something so simple as the “yanny” vs “laurel” debate, flossing, and yodeling videos.
It’s much easier to see the hurt that is caused by human hands. But with human hands, we can lift each other up, we can build technology that saves lives—technology that lets a little boy hear for the first time in his life. It’s a messy world, but the good still exists. Google said it best: Good things are worth searching for.
At the end of the day, as the video said, “The world is filled with people doing the best they can, you know, who love their kids and would like to live their lives with a little dignity and hope just like everybody else.”
It’s 2019, so let’s be the best we can be. The best moms and dads, daughters and sons, teachers and leaders, spouses and friends. Whatever you are called to be, be the best you can. There will be bad days, but within that, search for the small victories that make life worth living.
Photo Credit: google-provides-surprising-year-search-results-2018
