Thank goodness 2015 ends today. My wife and I have not been happy campers through most the year. I’m not going to get into why it’s been so dreary for us – I’ve yet to become like the bloggers who share every detail of their existence, dreadfully boring or not – but we’re sure looking forward to 2016.

Obviously there’s no telling what 2016 has in store, but we’re hoping it’ll be a great new year…for every one of us. We all deserve a wonderful new year. Between national financial crises, constant wars, natural and international weather disasters, and terrorist attacks, it’s about time for us to have a good year.

Forget about the New Year’s resolutions, please. Just live a good life, as we all know we should do every day.

Lose those extra pounds when it feels right. Quit smoking when you’re ready. Do whatever other resolutions are out there when it’s the right time to do so. Don’t worry about the date.

Concentrate, for goodness sake, on being a good person every day.

The only things that will impact us all is something many of you find beneath your contempt – politics.

What the next president, governor, and legislative body does will affect all of our lives. And like the brand new year that starts tomorrow, who knows whether it will be good or ill.

We won’t know the potential impact until late in the year during the November elections, but we can enjoy the show throughout the year to come.

It’s the original reality show. Far better than the Kardashians or the Duggars (neither of which I’ve ever watched). This show is all about what the most powerful nation that has ever existed will be doing to or for the rest of the world, and especially to or for the American people.

My advice on picking the next winners is to listen to what they say they want to do and how they plan to do it. Just as important, of course, is how they say it and what character traits they display.

I want a decent, good person making the decisions because they will be decisions that are made for the good of people.

You might say that this is a naïve, simplistic, or even stupid way to see things, but I think leaders should put aside selfishness, greed, and all the other great sins to be good, decent people who put doing the right thing for people as their number one priority.

They all say they do that, of course, because many politicians are not good, decent people. They’re liars and cheats who will say anything to get elected so they can gain the power and authority they think they deserve because they are so very much more wonderful and superior to the rabble, like us.

I don’t want to be unfair to folks, even politicians, and sometimes the fact-checking groups are right that such-and-such told a whopper, but it was not an actual lie because the person that said it thought it was the truth.

Just fact-checking does not tell the whole story, but politicians do have a tendency to tell deliberate whoppers. For me, that’s unforgiveable and a good reason to distrust everything they say.

Almost as bad, however, is when they unintentionally tell a whopper because they don’t know what the devil they’re talking about.

What a tawdry process our political process has evolved into. What an entertaining reality show it has become…eat your heart out Caitlyn Jenner.

Meanwhile, just be a good, decent person and be happy.

 

Keith Hoggard is a Staff Writer at Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be contacted at keith.hoggard@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.