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{"source_url": "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com", "url": "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/opinion/in-2020-think-big-but-be-realistic-with-your-goals_183426?profile=1444", "title": "In 2020, think big, but be realistic with your goals", "top_image": "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/JO/20200101/ARTICLE/301019966/AR/0/AR-301019966.jpg", "meta_img": "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/JO/20200101/ARTICLE/301019966/AR/0/AR-301019966.jpg", "images": ["http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/JO/20200101/ARTICLE/301019966/AR/0/AR-301019966.jpg", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/printer_16x16.png", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/JO/20200101/ARTICLE/301019966/AR/0/AR-301019966.jpg&maxh=332&maxw=504", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/2014/line_story.png", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/2014/rss_icon.png", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/livestream2.jpg", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/JO/20200101/ARTICLE/301019966/EP/1/2/EP-301019966.jpg&maxh=332&maxw=504", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/2014/jol_logo.jpg", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/2014/social_icons.png", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/email_16x16.png", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/JO/20200101/ARTICLE/301019966/EP/1/1/EP-301019966.jpg&maxh=332&maxw=504", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/JO/20200101/ARTICLE/191239933/AR/0/AR-191239933.jpg&maxw=303&maxh=230", "http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/images/2014/Logo_overlay.png"], "movies": [], "text": "We have come to the end of yet another year in the 21st century. You, like many, may believe that the decade ends on December 31, 2019. There are those who believe that the proper ending is December 31, 2020 and that the third decade in the 21st century rightly starts on January 1, 2021, but we will not allow that to detain us here. What we know for sure is that 2019 has ended.\n\nWhat we can say with great certainty and clarity is that the first two decades of this century have been as momentous as they have been tragic; as hopeful as they have been filled with despair for countless millions of people; as filled with opportunities for humankind as they have registered disappointments and missed expectations for many.\n\nAround the world 2019 was a year of political ferment. The British have had to face an election to end the wearying issue of Brexit. With the results of the last election favouring the Brexiters, there is greater confidence that Britain will leave the European Union, but with no clear prognosis of what the future holds.\n\nThe Middle East, home of the birth of the three major religions \u2014 Judaism, Christianity and Islam \u2014 continued to be a cauldron of hate and dislocation for millions of people. I have become convinced that there would be better prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians if they were left to work out their difficulties without interference from external parties such as America and Russia. But that is a subject for deeper analysis.\n\nFires have burned in Chile, France, Bolivia, Venezuela, and other parts of the world as people register their protests against the excesses of their leaders, or as they rail against corruption in their societies. The evil forces of hatred, bigotry, and racism werre evident in parts of the world. The incivility in social discourse, spurred on by the Internet, continued apace.\n\nAmericans, for the third time, have impeached a sitting president with all that this implies for peace and stability in the country. That nation's major institutions \u2014 the presidency, the Congress, intelligence agencies, and judiciary \u2014 have been severely tested by the intemperance and immorality of a president who lives by his own rules and who demonstrates proclivities of governance that would make Genghis Khan look like a good Sunday school teacher. In a year when the economy appears to be humming, the growing income inequality in that country has ensured that close to 60 per cent of Americans cannot find uS$400 to pay a bill without going into debt. Something is wrong with this glaring contradiction in the American economy. What hope is there that this problem will be redressed in 2020, a presidential election year, at a time when the country has never been more divided?\n\nHere in Jamaica we have managed to kill close to 450 of our fellow citizens in wreckages on the roads. In what seems to have now become gruesomely normative, we have murdered over 1,300 of our fellow citizens mainly by the gun. In fact, we have averaged over 1,000 murders in Jamaica over the past 20 years. A small country with such violent crime statistics cannot escape the inevitable shredding of its social fabric with all the negative psychological consequences attached.\n\nYet, despite these frightening statistics and the growing gap between the rich and the poor, it would be foolish to write a political, social, or economic obituary for the country. The inconvenient and uncomfortable truth is that crime is where it is because, collectively, as a nation, we have allowed it to be so. Strong resolve on our part as citizens can hold our political representatives accountable in putting resources and sound thinking to the issue. It is not beyond us to contain the murderous few who derive pleasure from slaughtering others.\n\nWe must not just sit on our verandahs or in our rum bars and jabber about corruption. We must become actively engaged in a movement to ferret out the corrupt among us \u2014 who, incidentally, are not just politicians) \u2014 and to insist on workable mechanisms of accountability to arrest the problem.\n\nAs we enter a new year \u2014 and for some a new decade \u2014 the challenges will be no less than what we faced in the preceding ones. In fact, they might have become more urgent. But we are a resilient people and the country can sail to new horizons of achievement if we bend our collective will to the task. What we do know is that problems do not end because a new year starts. But a new year presents opportunities to look at old problems through, perhaps, better, and less jaded lenses.\n\nIn keeping with the Socratic philosophy of the unexamined life not worth the living, personal resolutions will be made for self-improvement and relational enhancement among others. We must examine carefully what we resolve to do or not to do in the new year. What I know of resolutions that people make at the beginning of a year is that they tend to remain largely unfulfilled at the end of the year. For some people, their resolve begins to buckle or fade by March. A large part of the problem is that goals we set were never attainable in the first place. There was no strength of will attached to achieving them. Perhaps they were too audacious in the first place. Jim Collins and Jerry I Porras, in their still important book on business, Built to Last, coined the phrase \u201cbig, hairy, audacious goal\u201d (BHAG) which encourages companies and individuals to aim high and to stretch their imagination in achieving success. All of this is good, but any goal we set must be tempered with reality and a heavy dose of common sense.\n\nSo, I would advise what I do for myself. Yes, keep your resolutions big, hairy and audacious, but don't get ahead of yourself. I would urge simple, manageable, incremental steps towards one goal. Focus on what you intend to achieve like a laser beam and avoid toxicity in your personal space by not being in the company of the scornful and the envious. You can never achieve your goals by approaching life with the same habits, mindset, and attitudes that hobbled you in the preceding year. Change will not happen unless you manage it in small, incremental, manageable steps.\n\nA truly productive and healthy new year to you.\n\nDr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Send comments to the Observer or [email protected].", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["Local Opinion"], "tags": [], "authors": ["Jamaica Observer Limited"], "publish_date": null, "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "We have come to the end of yet another year in the 21st century. You, like many, may believe that...", "meta_lang": "", "meta_favicon": "/images/favicon.ico", "meta_data": {"alexaVerifyID": "rSmiGOPEjbvIe54g6VDdjp7fxDQ", "google-site-verification": "yGWL0JARPWTYZuQO6SyybESnW5Tn5sn_mj5vRQhwZq8", "y_key": "b1206159d404874b", "msvalidate.01": "F356DE1E2BCA8CFA747B5120592BE455", "description": "We have come to the end of yet another year in the 21st century. 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