It’s finally nearing the last days of 2020, a year the world and history books will never forget. We’ve gone through things that only happen in movies, or so we thought – a global pandemic, one of the most racially tensed periods since the Martin Luther King era, death all around us, and mental battles that brought us to our knees. But we’re still here standing. We always end the year focusing on what we did and didn’t do, comparing ourselves to others and what they did, and how we need to do more and more next year in order to feel this sense of accomplishment. Honestly, if you made it to this present point, mentally and physically, you deserve an award, because a lot of people didn’t. This year made everyone have to grow in some shape or form, no matter how small, from creating new perspectives of thinking, to letting things and people go that no longer serve a purpose. I wish I could tell you it was easy and comfortable, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I wish I could tell you we all came out on top and unblemished after this year, but I’d be lying. 2020 was literally the year of growth and discovery for everyone – it tested us a million ways and some. It made people better, but also worse. Honestly, I just hope when we all enter the new year, we all have a handful of hope to be and do better, to claim this new year as “our year”. We just need a little hope.

I wish I could show you guys from a television perspective of who I’ve been my whole life. I was always the guy caught up in this “one way or no way” type of thinking or just close-minded at times, you could say. This year literally forced me to gain new and better perspectives on myself and life, because my previous ones weren’t serving me in the best way possible. They limited my potential. I hope you change those negative habits that are limiting what God has planned for you and others. I hope you change for the better when life brings you down to your knees. This year has brought so much death, heartbreak, failure, and loss that you totally want to stop and give up. This is totally understandable, but we’re not going to make this acceptable. We’re not going to allow that to be an option. If 2020 taught us nothing else, it’s that we have to keep moving forward because life isn’t going to wait for us.

I hope you know starting over isn’t the worst thing, so long as you’re moving forward and not staying in the past or negative victim mindset. This isn’t to say what happened to you wasn’t harsh, horrible, or even uncalled for, but it happened. So now it’s up to you for what’s going to happen next: are you going to fold or grow from this experience?

It seems like since the start of the pandemic, all we have heard and experienced is negativity, but maybe they were just things testing and molding us into the people we needed to be in order to get ready for our season of blessings that’s trying to come forth. These tragedies created room for growth within all of us. A quote I recently heard was, if you don’t break nothing down, there’s no room to grow. We cannot receive something greater without making room for it in our current states, so maybe the losses we experienced are preparing us for greater returns. These losses from death, heartbreak, friendships, jobs, and homes can make you bitter or better in the end. It’s your choice. It can turn your views on everything in life bitter and negative. Mine did for a while, but it’s an everyday choice that I have to choose that there is light at the end of my dark tunnel. I hope when the world brings you to your knees that you get up. I hope when you no longer see light in this big great world, you keep digging a little deeper. I hope when you lose love and hope from a bad past relationship, you remember better is going to come to you. Finally, I hope when the world tries to dim the light in your soul, you shine brighter. I know life ain’t no Hallmark Christmas movie, but have hope that through all the mess, bumps, and bruises life will eventually hand you that in the end, you’ll get your beautiful ending we all deserve. I hope you realize a change is going to come.