Foster kindness, identify solutions and spread joy in 2022

On New Year's Eve, when I was a kid, at the stroke of midnight we would run outside and bang pots and pans with a wooden spoon to ring in the new year. Those were the modest homemade noisemakers of our small Kentucky town. As a teen, I would dream of being among the crowd in New York City when the ball dropped. I declared that's where I'd be for the year 2000. I wasn't. I was 25 years old and pregnant with my daughter. I slept right through it. Staying up until midnight had lost its novelty.

I may not celebrate at the stroke of midnight any longer, and I do not make any resolutions, but I do set intentions. I like to reflect on the year that's passed, determine what went well and what didn't and decide what to work on for 2022. This year, kindness is what overwhelmingly comes to mind. I want to foster kindness. It's no longer enough to just focus on my own actions. I want to explore how I can intentionally help kindness grow. I'm not perfect and of course I have my snarky moments, but I've also worked to become more aware of those moments and dig in to determine where that reaction comes from and hopefully adjust my attitude for better future reactions. One of the perks of being a columnist and working as an opinion editor is the email I get. I receive direct responses to what I've written as well as letters to the editor about issues of the day and op-eds from the community at large. I say this is a perk because I do not exist in an echo chamber or some sort of political vacuum. Because of this, I read kindness from all sides and perspectives. I also see meanness from all sides. It's difficult to maintain an us-versus-them attitude when I have the opportunity to witness a melting pot of humanity right here in my inbox.

I think people forget when they type out a letter in an online form or even send a business email that they are indeed initiating a conversation with another human being. Perhaps even a human that agrees with their particular stance. I've read things that I'm certain no one would say in a face-to-face conversation. It reminds me of road rage. Behind the wheel on the highway, people spout obscenities, honk the horn and flip the bird without a second thought as to who's on the receiving end. That barrier dehumanizes the intended target and makes it safe somehow to project rage.

Same with an email. COVID-19 has increased our physical distance and I fear it has only served to increase our emotional distance as well. My hope for 2022, pandemic or not, is that we can start closing some emotional gaps and start remembering our common humanity. We can disagree, we can share ideas and we can certainly be kind in the process. When you write an email, clicking "send" does not pitch it into the void. It lands in an inbox and in someone's day. Social media is rife with snark as well. It's surface-level, superficial snark. You're firing off from an emotional flare without challenging the fuse or digging deeper to better understand your explosive reactions. That takes reflection and internal work.

As we ran through the yard as kids and banged pots and pans to ring in the new year, we made good, celebratory noise -- giggling all the while. In 2022 I encourage you to join me in fostering kindness and challenging the sport of meanness by countering frustrations with actionable ideas for your community. Foster kindness and identify solutions. Get into "good trouble" as John Lewis famously said, but also release some good, celebratory noise.