Bracing up for 2015

The outbreak of Ebola virus epidemic in February in West Africa infecting over 19,000 people and killing at least 7,000 people, the most severe both in terms of numbers of infections and casualties, ushered us early into the challenges of the year 2014. However, if we thought 2014 was a very bad year, records prove otherwise, at least not when it comes to nature and ‘acts of God.’
There was not one defining catastrophic disaster as the devastating hurricane Sandy in New Jersey in 2012 or Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. No earthquake like Haiti’s in 2010 that wrought billions of dollars in damages over 200,000 lives lost and properties destroyed. No Asian tsunami that happened in 2004 that wiped out villages, towns and cities and killed some 300,000 people or typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 that took approximately 10,000 lives and leveled a number of communities.
We can make an exception in air travel though, with the three consecutive air disasters involving Asian airlines. In March, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers on board. . Officials believe the plane is somewhere in the Indian Ocean. But, nine months later, MH370 still hasn’t been found, to the great dismay and misery of the missing passengers’ and crew’s families. It’s a mystery that continues to baffle, nay haunt, the experts.
In July just a few months after the first air disaster, tragedy struck the same airline again, when Malaysia Airline Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 aboard.
And then, the unimaginable happened, disaster took place for the third time. Air Asia Flight 8501 carrying 162 passengers including crew, 12 children and an infant, crashed en route from Indonesia to Singapore. Unlike the first plane though, this 3rd one had already been located and search and recovery operations have since been taking place.
Before these disasters happened, both of these Airlines were found to have a flawless safety record.
On to the year 2015.
We’re done welcoming the New Year with another bang. We’ve made resolutions, promises and plans. We’ve read and mulled over predictions, opinions, etc., etc. We’ve stuffed our brains with so much information that sometimes we get confused.
We retrace our steps back to the year before and the years before then, to see what we did right and what we did wrong. To check if any of the plans and changes we had instituted actually made a difference.
Along the way, as we stumble into some things new or old, do we gradually see the whys and hows of our present existence? If we do, that’s a great start. Now build from that discovery, realization and acceptance and hang on to it for the next 364 days.
Brace up, your Day 1 has started. Before you know it, it will be just another day that passed.
Happy New Year!