New Year's appeal by District Administrator Dr Reinhard Kubat

Dear fellow citizens,

when we think back to 2020 in later years, one topic will be at the top of our list of memories: Corona, the Covid 19 pandemic, the SARS virus that has held the world in its frightening grip since the spring. It has brought public life, but also private life, largely to a standstill. Suddenly, nothing was as we knew it; we even had to limit our social contacts - for many people, including me, the worst effect of the pandemic. Not being allowed to go to the neighbours for a chat, not being able to celebrate a milestone birthday properly, but above all not being able to visit parents or grandparents of senior age, so as not to endanger them as a risk group... that was certainly the hardest thing for all of us.

Now a new year is just around the corner, which we do not know what it will bring, but which we are looking forward to with great hope in anticipation of the vaccinations against the coronavirus. And we can, I am quite confident! For as Hermann Hesse wrote in his poem Stufen: "...there is a magic in every beginning that protects us and helps us to live". Graduate theologian Ulrich Peters has taken the poem as the basis for life's wishes and life's treasures at the turn of the year, which have really done me good, especially in these difficult pandemic times, and which I would therefore like to share with you.

Unspent, that is how the 365 days of a new year lie before us on 1 January - a beginning, the start of a life span that each of us would probably like to make into something magical in the sense of Hermann Hesse's Stufen. There are a few valuable tips to ensure that we can consider this a success at the end of the year. First and foremost: don't be afraid of this beginning, tackle it courageously and be aware that it will take us further on our journey through life. And that is if we let it happen, accept it and do not shy away from the effort it entails.

Because we should also be aware that the journey of life is not a conveyor belt on which we can stand and which will take us to our destination without our doing anything. Development and growth, which we strive for, are connected with work that is worthwhile and that can also relieve us. Namely, when we are ready to say goodbye to everything that has inhibited us in the past. This is not easy, dear fellow citizens, after all, we first have to recognise which obstacles it was that blocked the flow of our lives. Often it is habits that have become self-evident, even cherished habits. Think about these habits for a moment... You will notice that many of them have already become paralysing and that you don't actually need them.

It is also very important for a magical journey through the year not to let concerns hold you back. Concerns are basically only there to be dealt with, with due consideration of course, and to be replaced by curiosity about what is to come. Don't waste your energy brooding over the impossible. Use your best powers, your imagination for what is doable, what is possible, for inspiring opportunities and possibilities for action on life's journey. If you wonder how this is supposed to work, you can take an example from children. With their basic trust, their boundless faith in an ultimately good outcome, they show a wonderful confidence for life that each of us should make our own. For then it is much easier to find one's way through the year unperturbed and cheerful and fearless.

I hope, dear fellow citizens, that you will be able to take the necessary equipment from these life wishes and life treasures into the year 2021 to tackle it with fresh courage and good faith in a victory over the pandemic. I send you off on your own personal journey with my best wishes, warmest greetings and a saying by the writer Jules Renard: "Paradise is not on earth, but bits of it are probably there." May you encounter many such little pieces of paradise in the 365 days of the new year.

Yours
Dr Reinhard Kubat
(District Administrator)