By Kent Singer, CREA Executive Director
If you, a friend or family member is a golfer, then you are probably familiar with the term “mulligan.” A mulligan is essentially what kids call a “do-over.” For example, if you hit a terrible tee shot and the ball goes sailing into a pond (hypothetically, of course, since this is not something I have ever experienced), you tee up another ball and try again.
As far as I’m concerned, we should consider the entire year of 2020 a mulligan. I mean, come on, who could have predicted a year where we endured a pandemic, a shutdown of the economy, unprecedented wildfires, weeks of social unrest and all of this topped off by a lengthy and brutal election?
Now, I’m sure lots of good things have happened in 2020: Families celebrated new additions, couples exchanged vows, people got new jobs or people made new friends. Thank goodness for all of those blessings. But for many Coloradans and Americans, 2020 has been a year of separation, heartache and uncertainty; the new year can’t come soon enough. And while it looks like we’ll be dealing with the pandemic for months to come, at least there are promising treatments and vaccines on the horizon to give us hope that life will gradually get back to normal next year.
So, what are you going to do with your mulligan? In golf, mulligans are typically limited to one per round, so you have to make the most of the next shot. That means you better make a plan for your 2021 mulligan year. Here’s my 10-step “2021 Mulligan Action Plan”:
• Step 1: See a movie in a theater.
• Step 2: Connect more. Connect with family, connect with friends, connect with co-workers, connect with our electric co-op family. I think we’re all connection-deprived; Zoom is great but a poor substitute for a real conversation, much less a hug.
• Step 3: Take a deep breath. I pledge to have a much slower middle finger trigger when navigating Denver traffic; we’ll see how long that lasts.
• Step 4: Walk the dog more. She deserves it and I need it.
• Step 5: Listen more, talk less. There’s a great line in the movie “Pulp Fiction” where Uma Thurman asks John Travolta: “Do you listen, or do you wait to talk?” I hope to listen better in 2021.
• Step 6: Learn to bake sourdough bread.
• Step 7: Quit eating bread and go on a low-carb diet.
• Step 8: Finally write that novel about a pandemic that threatens humanity. (It’ll never get published; the plot’s implausible.)
• Step 9: Pull out the trumpet and get the chops back in shape.
• Step 10: Thank everyone I work with at the Colorado Rural Electric Association for a job well done in 2020.
Perhaps my Mulligan Action Plan is not all that ambitious, but I think it’s realistic. No doubt your plan is better, so if you’re inclined to share, please drop us a line and let us know what you plan to do in 2021 to help recover from the train wreck that was 2020. I guess you could call these resolutions; I prefer the Mulligan Action Plan.
When I was a kid, my mom would fix ham hocks and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the coming of the new year; she said it would bring good luck. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m leaving nothing to chance. Honey, warm up the Crock-Pot®.
So long, 2020.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Kent Singer is the executive director of the Colorado Rural Electric Association and offers a statewide perspective on issues affecting electric cooperatives. CREA is the trade association for your electric co-op, the 21 other electric co-ops in Colorado and its power supply co-op.