For the last 3 years, at least one friend will at some point come up to me and say “I mean, there is no way this year could be worse than last year!” And I’m at the point where if one more person says that to me, I might just jump off a roof.

As it stands, on a great many fronts, I don’t know that 2019 is on track to be better than last year, or the year before. Now, I know this outlook seems kind of cynical, but the idea is that low expectations leaves less room for disappointment, and greater room for a pleasant surprise. I mean, there are things that might suggest a light at the end of the tunnel. Political power in Washington feels a little less one sided. The general populace is more than ever worried about things like climate change. But at the same time, Donald Trump might be one bad day away from pushing the big red button, and this could be the year that deregulation screws our economy and ecology. So we are on a weird pendulum and I don’t know which way it will swing.

But I know one thing. I don’t need some jerk jinxing it by saying “It can’t be worse than last year!”