It is a time of celebration and change as we close the doors on the holiday season and, as per the Gregorian calendar, cross over from an old to a new year. Indeed, this is also a time for reflection.

Change is all around us as an inevitable component in the ongoing process of life that we face as sentient beings. Whether or not you like it, whether or not you prepare for it, whether or not you are ready for it, things always change. This is the fact of life.

I recall sitting in a Parent-Teachers’ Association (PTA) meeting with my mother at Linstead All-Age School in the mid-1970s. She usually took us to these meetings as she felt it was safer, and better than leaving us with someone else. The principal, Lester E Smart, spoke about the value of education for everyone, including working class and poor individuals like many of us who sat in that meeting. According to Smart, there would come a time when “even the handcart man would have GCE subjects”! I sat and watched the entire meeting express much consternation: “How could he say such a thing? That would never happen! Horrors!”

This was at a time when many ordinary Jamaicans from rural, working and poor classes had a goal of getting subjects in the Jamaica School Certificate (JSC) examinations, and getting a few GCE (General Certificate of Education) subjects was akin to getting a first degree for those who were lucky to get into a traditional high school. Many fantasised about getting into teachers’ college or nursing school or the police training school. Others who ascended to higher heights were celebrated for getting a first degree at a university. And those who were lucky to study abroad in places like England and receive a master’s degree were seen as kings and queens.

But, today, a first degree is seen as entry level in many careers and institutions, and a master’s degree is an expectation for moving upwards in many instances. I am sure many youngsters today don’t even know what a JSC is, and the regional Caribbean Examinations Council’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations have replaced the GCE ordinary and advanced levels.

Even while greater access is needed, access to tertiary education has expanded significantly; moving from a time when only two per cent of Jamaicans had access to tertiary education to now when approximately 30 per cent have local access to tertiary education.

Of course, I absorbed every single word I heard as a child of six or seven years in that PTA meeting and kept them close. Experience teaches wisdom. Smart’s predictions have in part come true. Things have indeed changed.

Change can be painful and difficult. Oftentimes, even when it is staring in our faces, beating down our doors and running right beside us, we try to ignore it. We struggle with the inevitable. This is the human condition. In some countries there are four distinct and very different seasons that are staged every year. You know when it is summer; you know when it is autumn; and you certainly know when winter’s cold fingers grip you at the throat, bringing every sneeze, flu, cold, and layers of warm clothing. But then spring dances in and gifts you the potential of renewal, revival, and rebirth. The metaphor of spring as renewal and revival in so many poems and songs came alive to me very poignantly and very clearly when I lived in Virginia during my studies abroad. There is nothing quite so uplifting and energising as seeing the bare, skeletal branches, laden with ice and snow, slowly burst out into vibrant, green life. There is nothing quite so comforting as waking up and seeing blooming flowers where you once had a dry, icy patch.

In Jamaica we have two seasons, sunshine and less sunshine — that is, rain. In a place of perpetual sunshine, and sometimes rain, it is difficult to use the seasons as a metaphor for change. We go along merrily expecting sunshine every day, and often quarrel when the necessary rainy season comes. But rain is nurturing, it grows our food and plants and it provides water for so many uses. It is inevitable, and it is necessary.

Change is necessary and inevitable. Many spend this time of the year giving thanks for family and friends. It is also spent thinking about what we achieved, did not achieve; what we gained and what we lost, who we lost and who we wish would be with us to spend the holidays. It is a time when many struggle with the obvious changes in a relationship or a family situation, and when others sit and wish that things were the way they were many years ago. This is a season that can be filled with joy and pain simultaneously. You miss your mother, who has long gone. You miss your father. You long to be with your wife or husband, a sibling or a child. You wish your best friend was still living in Jamaica. You wish you could travel to be with family.

As we look back at the holidays and welcome a new year you must choose how much joy and how much pain you will share up on your scales. Choose to be happy for every single good thing, and give thanks for what has come to you, spent some time, and moved on. Choose to weigh your scales of life in your best interest and balance like an Olympic gold medal gymnast. Life is a real balancing act.

This is a season for balanced reflection. It is a time of resolve as you make resolutions about how you will be better when you cross the threshold into a new year. I am encouraging you to also see the season as a time to accept the changes that have come. I am encouraging you to go boldly into those changes that have already beckoned and to cease resisting those that are already upon you.

Things change, and they often do so for the good. We are blessed with the capacity to adapt, so, like water, flow into your transformation. Bloom where you are planted, and choose to be brave even while you are crippled by mind-numbing fear. Being brave in the presence of fear is always a choice. Choose well. Cut your hair, ladies. Do a makeover. Begin a healthy lifestyle and stick with it. Step out of that comfort zone, gentlemen. Get up and do what you need to do to change that situation. Master the gift of goodbye and use it to save yourself from drowning. Transform your work life so you can enjoy the benefits of your many years of labour. If you need a new career, go back to school, part-time, evening, weekends or full-time; whichever suits your budget and lifestyle. Sell that big house and downsize if you are an empty nester. Move to the suburbs or the city. Get up and grab your changes by the horns and ride them into the next phase of your life. You are not a tree, so you can move. You have the power in your hands and in your minds.

Change is inevitable. It is inescapable. Be brave and run with it into the next chapter of your life.

I hope you had a blessed and balanced holiday season in the best way you could, and that you enjoyed every good thing that came your way. Best wishes for a most productive 2020 filled with abundance and undiluted happiness from my home to yours.

Donna P Hope, PhD, is professor of culture, gender and society at The University of the West Indies. Send comments to the Observer or dqueen13@hotmail.com.