Rodent Regatta

Bob Evans, editor of Information Week, has written a terrific column. His resolution for 2003? Don’t lose hope. Look at these excerpts:

Pennsylvania’s PowerBall lottery jackpot late last week reached somewhere north of $160 million, and lots of people were talking about what a Merry Christmas the winning ticket would bring. There’s an almost otherworldly fervency to the selection of numbers and buying of tickets and watching the results, as if the one and only way to have any chance of making it in the world is by defying odds of one out of 150,000,000 and winning the loot—it’s as if some of the folks snapping up tickets feel they have no other choice, no other alternative.

...both of my lunch companions said they themselves had paid off their mortgages and eliminated all outstanding debt and were hacking away at some discretionary household expenses in anticipation of the worse that’s still to come.

But the worst of all is the loss of hope. Of optimism. Of will, and of courage, and of entrepreneurship, and risk-taking, and motivation and energy and a sense of doing whatever must be done. I don’t think these, among our most ennobling qualities, are gone, or that they’ve even strayed very far. Rather, I think we’ve come through a lot in the past three years, and particularly the past 15 months, certainly enough to rattle the foundations of any people, any country. What we have that no one can take is our freedom-to act, to think, to live, to grow, to strive, to build, to love, and even to fail. We’ve taken some horrendous shots in the past year or so, but that’s OK-we’re going to emerge stronger than ever before.

I’m looking forward to 2003, and not just because it means 2002 is gone. It’s time for us all to recommit ourselves to being the very best we can be, personally and professionally, in the coming year and beyond. Happy holidays to all of you from all of us at InformationWeek.