However gloomy our present situation appears – personally, nationally or both – the beginning of another year always seems to strike a chord of optimism with even the most pessimistic (me!) among us. Somehow, just the thought of a fresh new beginning is uplifting.

 
 
And, as Daniel Greenfield (aka – Sultan Knish) reminds us with this repost from 2012, it’s always easier to feel optimistic about the future when we recall past events.
 
Looking back at December 31, 1912, Greenfield recalls the challenges that lay in America’s near future ~

If we were to stop a reveler staggering out of a hotel, stand in his path and tell him that war was five years away and a great depression would come in on its tail, that liquor would be banned, crime would proliferate and a Socialist president would rule the United States for three terms, while wielding near absolute power, he might have decided to make his way to the recently constructed Manhattan Bridge for a swan dive into the river.

 
Not exactly a cheery outlook.
 
Yet somehow the country survived, growing stronger in the process. And so,

As the year sweeps across the earth, let us remember that history is more than the worst of its events, that all times bear the burden of their uncertainties, but also carry within them the seeds of greatness. Looking back on this time, it may be that it is not the defeats that we will recall, but how they readied us for the fight ahead. 2012 may be as forgotten as 1912, but 2018 and 2022 may endure in history.
 
America has not fallen, no more than it did when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1912. Though it may not seem likely now, there are many great things ahead, and though the challenges at times seem insurmountable and the defeats many, another year and another century await us.

 
As we turn the page to begin another chapter in the history of world, let’s try not to be so sharply focused on our present day problems that we lose track of the much larger historical picture. While these might not be the best of times, they aren’t exactly the worst of the times.