Sometimes I have these weird memories of seemingly insignificant moments. Usually in relation to me thinking about someone that I wasn’t really that cool with, but I wonder about them anyway. Several years ago, I was talking to this guy named Paul that sat in the cubicle across from me at work. We weren’t friends, but we talked fairly often, usually about whatever was on his mind since I don’t recall ever initiating a conversation with him. One morning when I came in, he initiated a conversation with “Doug, you strike me as a glass half full sort of guy”. He cut me off as I was addressing that comment to start telling me what he wanted to say. With me writing about this moment now you may be thinking it was important, but it was only something about his role in the union. Someone came and interrupted him and much to my pleasure, we never finished that conversation, and we both moved on with our day.

The most significant aspect of that conversation (for me at least) was his incorrect assessment that I never got the opportunity to address. When I was reflecting on 2025 finally ending, I remembered how it began for me. We drove back from Vegas on New Years Eve, my family went to a party, I went to bed because I was under the weather. The greater We, were still shell shocked by the election results, enjoying our last moments of sane governmental leadership. I remember telling people, before the election outcome, as the year and administration began, we were in for some bullshit. No claims to be Nostradamus, but I was definitely right about all of that. 

He meant to spell that as “Brake”, but it sounds the same.

Gotta Love Nuance

I was going to tell Paul that I’m the type of person that assesses whether one is drinking or pouring before describing the state of the glass. I know the idea is that pessimists see it as half empty, optimists see it as half full, but I don’t see a lot of things in this binary way. Sadly, it seems our world has forgotten that things are more complicated than simply being right or wrong. Situations are not just good or bad, full or empty, liberal or conservative. There is so much more nuance to these conversations. To me, there is peace and understanding in the nuance. There are common ground and common sense in the nuance. We have recently been conditioned to think binarily in a world of nuance.

2025 was a shitty ass year for a lot of people in the U.S. (and some that are now unsurprisingly) no longer in the U.S. one many are delighted is now over. A lot of folks are hoping for a better 2026, and I can appreciate that optimism. There are others that realize the calendar flip didn’t change the circumstances, so they’re expecting more of the same. That’s where the nuance comes in, because both are rational feelings about the year, but the truth is it will come down to our actions. Hopes and dreams are cool, but reality is what you make of it. I think many of us let 2025 come to us, and as a result we collectively look back and think “good riddance”. If we want to sing a different tune in 2027, we have to take 2026. If we let it come to us, the pessimists will see their prediction come true. All that said, regardless of how you see your glass in 2026, half full, half empty or filled with backwash, you have 365 days to truly define it.  

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