New Year would taste a whole lot sweeter if our resolutions meant something

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities. – JRR Tolkien

Everyone has their secret terrors, those waking nightmares that follow us and make us shiver when the lights go out. When we were kids it was a monster in the wardrobe, but as we grew up, so too did our nightmares. In a way, fear defines so much of humanity. It defines our history, our future, our present.

The manner in which we choose to deal with fear is going to define so much of our future, because right now the world is turning into a distinctly nightmarish place. We’re afraid of one another, we’re afraid of ourselves. We’re afraid of never finding love, and we’re afraid of loving.

Fear wrote the greatest novels, the most haunting poems, and all because of those imaginary orc armies chasing us around inside our heads.

We’re afraid to speak our minds because the rest of the world is made up of frightened masses that fear change and they’ve got the tools at their fingertips to send us death threats in 140 characters or less. We’re afraid to be ourselves because there are people out there who think that being different means deserving to be dead.

The universe didn’t come out of the cradle spewing hatred.Once upon a time it was quiet, calm, peaceful, and then we came along and tried to establish order.

We looked at the world and saw its worst qualities. There must be rich and poor. People have to die if they’re not the same as we are.

Macabre standards

We’re high on our sense of importance, on our right to judge everyone around us according to macabre standards of “well if I don’t like it, it must be wrong”. We’ve created a society where might is right, where pretty much everything trumps human life and the right of human beings to govern their fate.

Such is the extent of our assumed right to this world that we shoot each other over borders and who believes in what. We do unspeakable things to one another because our society says it’s okay. We’ve reached a watershed moment in our culture, and right now it doesn’t look promising. We systematically murder people due to criteria such as: race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, political views. We let millions die of starvation every day. We moan about first world problems when people still die of treatable diseases and we base our economies on unethically cheap labour.

Our resolutions

New year is my favourite time of year, but it would taste a whole lot sweeter if our resolutions meant something – maybe this year they could extended farther than generously not killing people because of who they like to kiss, or whether or not they both want to go to school and are female.

It’s time we stopped glaring at people who look different and it’s time we accepted that skin colour is not permission to dismiss. Try to remember that when God told people to love everyone, He didn’t mean just the people who are the same as we are. He didn’t mean that it’s okay to hate the things we don’t understand, or to hate those who don’t believe in Him. He wasn’t being coy when he said “everyone”.

That means every single person. Whether they’re from up the road or across the world. Whether they speak your language or not. Regardless of who they love or if they have tattoos. Regardless of their gender or gender identity.

The new year is about celebrating new things and new starts. Maybe it’s time we decided to live in a new way, to accept what we do not understand and stand up for the things that we do.

It’s time to start protecting other people, to raise our voices in outrage when powerful nations bully smaller ones.

We need to find our courage and defeat the dragon that has been hoarding our love with jealous eyes. I’m not saying that it’s going to be a simple affair, but we all have a choice. We can be better, climb higher, dream bigger.

You'd be amazed what one small hobbit can do. Emma Tobin is a Leaving Certificate student at the Holy Family secondary school in Newbridge, Co Kildare