Last year, “The Operator” provided 2020 predictions. Today, she is looking forward and presenting her 2021 forecast, while also looking backward and thinking about what she wrote in 2020. Fascinating stuff.
2021 Predictions from The Operator
Hooray, it's 2021! Or, as I like to think of it, 2021: The Year We Do It
Last year, we saw it all. We saw everything we didn't want to see. We saw what we truly value.
Guess what? This is the year we start acting on what we saw.
There are two main phases to this year. The first phase lasts until March 5. During this time, we're recovering from overwhelm. It's as though we came down a wild waterslide and landed in water that was a little too deep and choppy for us to swim out of easily. Until March 5, we'll be struggling to tread water and get ourselves over to the edge of the pool to climb out.
After March 5, we'll each have a much better idea what we want to do. This is going to feel great! Expect feelings such as, "Well, that was enough of THAT." You'll be clear about what you definitely don't want and ready to move forward on the things you now know for sure that you do want! And you will move forward.
When you're first stepping forward to do what you want, you'll feel a little confused by what you see. The people around you won't be doing anything like what you're doing. This is because everybody is going to be embarking on their new path. At first, it's going to seem as though nobody is heading down the same path as you -- as anyone else, for that matter. Never fear; this feeling of disjointedness will be temporary.
Come August, the feeling of disconnection will smoothen out. People will find commonality of purpose and begin making real changes together. The rest of the year will be interesting, productive, and satisfying. That is, it will be these things if you aren't stubbornly holding on to old ways! There will still be plenty of surprises. Anyone who is stuck in the past is going to suffer a lot, mentally, for this whole year. Success lies in keeping abreast of new ideas and solutions. Please allow yourself to have new ideas, hear other people's ideas, and try new things. This is the year of trying out the things we started thinking about last year.
Last year, I predicted that lottery winners would start a trend of doing good deeds with their money. This prediction came true, except for that the term "lottery winners" turned out to be metaphorical. Kim Kardashian West, one of the oddly wealthy people of our society, used some of her money to right injustices in the penal system. I admit that I didn't keep up with the news well enough to find out who else did good deeds with their large fortunes. What I do know happened is that the idea of letting money flow in directions normal people want has become more fashionable.
For example, there were stimulus checks paid to citizens for no reason other than that the citizens needed it. Finally! Many people have been promoting the merits of unconditional benefits transfers from the government (the most famous of which is universal basic income) for a while now. After decades of gradually clamping down on all government benefits to the point that most citizens don't qualify for them anymore, this is the first time in recent history that the US government has given unconditional benefits transfer a decent try.
In general, starving people to get them to do what you want is going to fall further out of vogue in 2021, while allowing money to flow where it's needed is going to become gradually more fashionable.
I also predicted something I didn't understand, which was that there would be a new technology that would have us spending more time together. I didn't understand how a technology could do this. I realize now that what I was foreseeing was the surge in the use of Zoom and Google Meet that has occurred due to the pandemic. People are spending more time looking one another in the face now, which is wonderful.
I was wrong when I predicted that the Democratic Party nominating Joe Biden would mean that the incumbent President would win the election. Joe Biden was elected, and the incumbent did not win. The part of my prediction that was true was that nominating Biden would mean that we as a country are not ready to be finished with the incumbent yet. Indeed, we are not. There's more to come. I think we're getting there, though. As I write this, Inauguration Day is a mere six days away. I don't think we'll be finished with him in six days. I think we're only about 81% finished with him, amazingly. We'll get there.
I predicted a dramatic decline in the rates of domestic violence. I'm still expecting this, although I think universal basic income will have to move further along first.
From my predictions last year: Unfortunately, health care will continue to be a frightening issue, and people's medical bills will continue to pile up, throughout 2020. True. And this: I don't expect to see any improvements in the health care crisis until 2023. At that point, it will feel embarrassing that we're in such a mess. The profiteers who have been creating the current debacle will start to back off because it's no longer fashionable to make huge amounts of money off of other people's suffering. I stand by this prediction. I wish 2023 weren't so far away.
From my predictions last year: In summary, the main message of the year 20/20 is that it's time to FOCUS. Think about what you want, for real. Endeavor this year to give more thought time to your desires than to your beliefs. Belief is becoming less strong all the time, while desire is increasing in power. Well, that declining strength of belief sure came true in a surprising way, didn't it? Twenty-twenty seemed almost designed to make us start questioning everything we saw and therefore everything we believed. Maybe it was.
So, we had a year to practice seeing more clearly, reconsidering the values we hold. For example, fiscal conservatives seemed to notice, suddenly, that the economy doesn't work unless human beings have the resources to participate in it. (I presume that they knew this all along but pretended they didn't.) Now, we're going to let our desires lead us, rather than our beliefs in how things are or how they're supposed to be. Maybe things aren't supposed to be the way they have been anymore.
Calling 2021 "The Year We Do It" is perhaps too ambitious on my part. We will get into action this year, but I don't think we'll enjoy real success yet. That comes later. This year, we start acting on our new ideas. So, I secretly amend my title for this year to "2021: The Year We Try to Do It." I didn't say this at the beginning of this article, because it sounds a little discouraging. In our minds, let's stick with 2021: The Year We Do It, because it's the most inspiring thought to guide us through this year. We've learned a lot, and we can start doing things differently now. Let's do it.
Until March 5, 2021, things will feel more like a continuation of 2020 than the start of a new year. This is new, though, I promise you. You will never go down that waterslide again.
The Operator
(505) 321-1256
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