As the clock struck 12 midnight, glasses were raised and well wishes and new resolutions rang out signaling the start of 2022. We’ve been down this road before many a time, but the last few years have not been kind and whatever we have wished for has been hard to achieve.
Whether it is happiness, health, prosperity or simply just to have a good work/life balance. COVID-19 has made it nearly impossible to achieve. The pandemic filled this New Year’s Eve with trepidation and hesitancy when it came to speaking about wishes and resolutions for the future.
We need to remain bold and trust ourselves and those around us, that together we will get through this. Basically, every time a new year approaches, we reimage our lives and make mental promissory notes to ourselves and those around us. We are going to be better, more prosperous, healthier and have a more well-balanced life.
With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to rage, we see that not only we as people want to reimage our life, our country, Namibia, is also keen to reimage itself. We all need to take a beat and make structural changes and move to a post-COVID-19 era.
A post-COVID-19 seems to be within our grasp, but we assumed so before as well, this continues to play havoc on us as a population, as individuals and as a nation. If we want to truly ‘reimage’ our nation and ourselves, we cannot just make throw-away resolutions which are broken by January 5th, we need to stick with our resolutions. This means working at the things that we were doing wrong, or simply wanted to improve.
This means that as a nation, if Namibia wants to ‘reimage’ itself, we need to look at how the economy can be structurally and fundamentally changed for the better and for all. Reaching and achieving goals such as Vision 2030 but also looking beyond and working towards Agenda 2063.
The resilience and recovery of the Namibian economy is a more challenging prospect and lies in reimaging our economy. Shifting from a commodity-based economy to a knowledge-based economy, which embraces the need for climate change and leverages new energy sources such as hydro-electric, solar and hydrogen as well as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
This goal has been championed by our President, the Honorable Dr. Hage Geingob. Part of this ‘reimaging’ will need to focus on job creation and leveraging the 4IR to create these new jobs and opportunities.
The goal is to reimage one’s life and make fundamental changes to it. Whether you are focused on living a healthier life, or pursuing that that promotion, further your academic career or simply feel more mentally well-balanced within yourself. It is a journey to embark on, and it will take constant effort. Just like reimaging the Namibian economy from what it has been and to what it is, and to what it can be.
Despite working hard, finding time to spend with my beautiful family, looking after my health, I will spend time to ‘reimage’ myself and make myself more mentally resilient. Will stop being so hard on myself and find a mental health balance. This will be my journey for 2022 and was my resolution when the clock struck 12 on December 31st, 2021. Hope you will join me on this continuous journey of reimaging.
Happy and healthy 2022
* Dr. John Steytler writes in his personal capacity
