SHOULD I SAY HAPPY NEW YEAR

1/3/2026

I have never lived under a dictatorship. I have read about countries where people live this way. I have had friends who lived under such governments and spoke about what it felt like. I have read histories of the many, many situations like this. But I have never experienced even the slightest shred of that kind of life.

As the new year begins, I face the fact that I am now living under a government that is a dictatorship. I watch as the rights my family traveled here to experience—and to pass on to their children—are being shredded. I watch as my country’s commitments and friendships with other nations are being clipped and, more often, slashed.

I am discovering, late in life, how fragile freedom actually is.

In our lives, more often than not, we forget there is a time limit on everything: this brief space we occupy, this connection to family and friends, this breath of fresh air we are allowed to take. We fall into the trap of thinking we are forever—that what we do is forever. We do not look at the past and see that there has never been a forever, and never will be.

Alexander never dreamed he would die in Babylon, having turned back at the edge of India, without completing the conquest of the world he believed he should own. He was not an old man when that sudden death occurred. He is not here today. Admired by some—admired by many—for his achievements, he still died and left everything behind. Why is he called Alexander the “Great”? Why are dictators remembered in history? Is it because of the fear they instilled, the aura of unbeatable strength?

We fear the control of our lives by another person to whom we did not give that permission. Still, we acquiesce. Is it fear of annihilation, isolation, loss, and silence?

And what of those who support the dictator? Where are their minds, hearts, emotions? Do they love being controlled, or are they afraid of being free—afraid of the responsibilities that come with freedom, afraid of freedom itself, of the deep, unfathomable connection it creates among all beings?

America will never return to what it was before these years—the ones we are living now and the ones still to come. We seem to be living in a silent war, and history shows how difficult it is to rebuild after any war, especially one that goes unnamed. I have been told of other hard periods in American history, but in examining those, there seems to have been more hope for the future than I sense today—a deeper respect for the “being” we all are.

As we become increasingly automated, our will to resist is quietly soothed. We are surrounded by creations meant to make life easier, more efficient, more “beneficial,” yet in the process we are losing something essential—the inner substance of life itself, the connection to our own being.

If leaders want a healthy country, they will have to find new ways of governing to meet whatever goals they pursue. Still, there is hope: hope that a healthy country can exist in the future for people who live in this hemisphere, in this land, in this “democracy.” Hope for a different kind of democracy, and for a way of living that honors the inner life, the unseen energy that links one person to another.

I will tread softly, meditate, love my family and friends, and continue to move forward as we have been meant to do.