'Things work out'

By Park Moo-jong

A half century ago in 1971, British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam since 1978, praised the first morning of the year, Jan. 1, in his Christian hymn-turned-pop song, "Morning Has Broken."

Whatever 2021, the "Year of the Metal Ox," will be, the start of the year is not that bright due to stubborn difficult circumstances surrounding the peninsula and the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

To add insult to injury, the new year, signifying peace and leisure according to the Chinese zodiac related to the lunar calendar, took the first step with the season's coldest wave of around minus 10 degrees Celsius, naturally keeping people indoors (To be precise, the Year of the Ox starts on Feb. 12, New Year's Day in the lunar calendar, but traditionally and for convenience sake, we also regard Jan. 1 as the first day of the new zodiac animal).

This January, named after the Latin word for door, "ianua," meaning the door to the year and an opening to new beginnings, is conventionally thought of as being named after Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions in Roman mythology with two faces that look to the future and the past.

Yet, the past is gone and we have to look to the coming days of the New Year. The global disease that has been destroying our daily routines over the past 12 months is certain to continue spreading with deadly effect. But there lies hope for a better year while the world embarked on fighting the virus with vaccines and treatments.

By the way, the New Year means a start with most people making various resolutions, particularly during the hard battle against the unprecedented pandemic in the 21st century. As they used to and still do, people make New Year's resolutions to start something good and stop doing something bad, looking to the outgoing year and the incoming year like the two-faced Janus.

Bridget Jones, the 32-year-old single girl in the 1996 novel of British writer Helen Fielding, "Bridget Jones' Diary," made literally countless New Year's resolutions at the start of January, classifying them by "I will not" and "I will."

On top of the "I will" list was, absolutely like most people in the world, particularly Koreans of today, quitting smoking, reducing drinking and losing weight, among other things. Of course, as in other years, many people will faithfully live up to the realistic joke: "Resolutions good for only three days."

Despite their efforts, as much as 90 percent of the people who attempt to change utterly fail. Why are these resolutions so difficult to keep? A Canadian scientist in 2002 blamed "False Hope Syndrome," the unrealistic expectation of self-change in the "cycle of failure and renewed effort."

But don't be disappointed by what we failed to do. Experience tells us how difficult it is to live up to promises made to ourselves. When we attain reasonable goals, we feel euphoric and what a wonderful sense of fulfillment and pride that is! Yet we don't need to be discouraged with the failed resolutions that were good for three days.

Here is some noteworthy advice by Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959), a British-born American poet, known as the "People's Poet" whose poems often had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life.

In his poem "Things Work Out," he said: "Because it rains when we wish it wouldn't, because men do what they often shouldn't, because crops fail, and plans go wrong, some of us grumble all day long........ But keep on working and hoping still. For in spite of the grumblers who stand about, somehow, it seems, all things work out."

As for hopes, not for resolutions, the undisputed hope of Koreans and other people across the world will be taking off their face masks, thus showing their real faces to others with comfortable breathing, and shaking hands, asking "How do you do?" as Louis Armstrong (1901-71) sang in 1967 in his "What a Wonderful World."

On top of the other hopes listed by Korean salaried workers are being financially stable (55.9 percent), followed by healthcare (18.3 percent), home ownership (7 percent), dating and marriage (6.6 percent), travel (3.9 percent) and appearance management (2.2 percent).

The wage earners, mostly in their 30s, indeed testified to the difficult economic conditions the nation now faces amid the spreading coronavirus pandemic, paying little concern to the political situation.

Few will deny that we have witnessed so many cases over the last year in which the principles based on laws and rules have been violated all too easily, the result of which was confusion and conflict, though we know that the basic idea of democracy is the rule of law and principles, not rule by men.

Those in power, either of the public or private sector, appeared last year to overwhelm the laws and the rules of the country.

When the people feel that they are not treated fairly, they become alienated from the government and the trend apparently reached its limit. Without the public's support and trust, the government is unable to tide the nation over our latest difficulties, spearheaded by the coronavirus and economic hardships.

We still have a long way to go to get to the other side of the tunnel. However, there is no need to be too pessimistic about the difficulties of today. I hope that our leaders will go all out in 2021 to build a nation we have never experienced, as President Moon Jae-in pledged.

Morning has broken for the New Year. I don't like to see a "broken" morning. I have an optimistic hope that things work out this year. I wish you a very happy and healthy New Year.

Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.