People throughout the world are focused on the waning days of 2022. In a week and a day, father time will exit our world. It has been a long and difficult journey for him, and he leaves with a litany of problems that he has faced.

The aged father time

The world hopes the New Year baby has a better year than his predecessor.

The arrival of hope for happiness in 2023

Everyone in the world will begin the New Year hoping and wishing for a better year than last. It has been that way for countless millennia. I can’t think of anyone hoping for a better New Year than Donald the Dumb. No matter where he looks, whether in New York, Georgia, or Washington, DC, he faces a litany of litigations filed against him. In a previous essay, I wrote about another coup attempt. That coup took place in Tokyo the night before Hirohito announced his surrender to the Allies in 1945. It was called the Midnight Coup and led by Major Kenji Hatanaka. I read a rumor that when Hatanaka realized that his coup attempt failed, he said before shooting himself in his head, “We won, and the notion that the others won is fake news. Besides, it wasn’t even a war. It was just a peaceful demonstration for MJGA.” MJGA is an acronym for Make Japan Great Again. So, Trump can maintain he won the election, but he might learn a lesson from history. Hatanaka finally woke up to reality.

That is one option that Trump has. The other one is to watch this video of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, written in 1843. No one has verbalized the hope that can change the old into the new as Dickens has done in that novella.

Wait. I have an idea. Elon Musk is always taking polls of his Twitter followers. My poll will ask the Kierkegaardian question either/or. Either Trump will crash and burn as the MAGA leader, as did the MJGA leader, Hatanaka, or he will become a resurrected Ebenezer Scrooge. Which path will our former president take?

Oops. I nearly forgot. Be careful whom you choose as a mentor. We become our mentors. Choose wisely.