We’re in the middle of the holiday season and it’s also List Week when everyone’s a critic—professional or not—giving their take on their favorite movies, books, albums, plays, things they ate, etc. 

I’ve never enjoyed making these year end lists, at least not in the conventional sense. And honestly, I don’t enjoy reading them either. I almost never agree with the assessments. For instance, this season almost every year-end movie list I read recommends One Battle After Another. I made it halfway and decided the people who say they love it probably made it to the end after sitting through 90 minutes of “Do Supertramp, but change the key and repeat the same top note incessantly.” Maybe that grating music is a kind of hypnosis that convinces people an unwatchable movie is really a groundbreaking masterpiece.

But I digress. Much as “listing” irritates me, this is a week I do like to take stock and figure out a game plan for the next twelve months. I thought about what went right and what broke through the clouds in the past terrible no good very bad year. Things happened/are happening beyond my immediate control, however my power isn’t fully drained.