Those who dare to risk, lead. Those who hesitate, follow. Those who cling to safety, vanish from their own potential. Courage is the bridge between who we are and who we are meant to become. — Lisa Hanna

I wrote these words for friends and those closest to me and gave them as personalised cards this year. They were meant as a private message, not a public declaration. But the moment we are entering makes them impossible to keep private, because what once felt personal is now structural.

You see, courage is often confused with bravado or recklessness, but it is neither. It is quieter and more exacting than that. Courage is the disciplined decision to move forward without guarantees, to act when outcomes are uncertain and assurances are absent.

As we approach 2026 this distinction matters because we are entering a period that will not reward comfort, consensus, or waiting to be chosen. The world is recalibrating at a pace that leaves little room for hesitation, and those who advance will not necessarily be the loudest or the safest, but the most decisive.

Globally, the direction of travel is clear. Economic power is shifting, traditional alliances are thinning, and technology is compressing time, labour, and relevance. Artificial intelligence, automation, and capital mobility are already reshaping how value is created and who benefits from it. The global economy is becoming faster, leaner, and less forgiving, and opportunity is concentrating around those who move early and adjust quickly.

In this environment, neither nations nor individuals are preserved out of fairness or sentiment. They are either adaptive or they are bypassed.

In such a landscape, courage is a practice. It is the repeated choice to assume responsibility, rather than outsourcing it; to act rather than posture; to participate rather than spectate. What we often describe as caution is, in many cases, our fear that has learned how to sound reasonable. Over time, the difference becomes unmistakable and one can tell true discernment as it results in movement and decision. Fear, disguised as caution, on the other hand, produces delay that repeats itself until it becomes a pattern.

This pattern is easier to recognise when we think back to childhood. Anyone who played Stucky remembers the posture: Arms stretched out, waiting for someone to pull you free. Sometimes, no one came. That was not bad luck or cruelty, it was the group making a decision. The game did not stop. It moved on.

Some people grow up and never leave that posture. They remain arms extended, waiting for life to slow down or someone else to intervene, convinced they are misunderstood. Meanwhile, others change teams, change games, and keep moving.

If you are still standing there with your arms out, the problem is not misunderstanding; it is misalignment. At some point waiting becomes staying, and staying carries a cost, because momentum gathers around those who move. Stillness does not attract rescue; it fades from relevance. This is not moral commentary. It is how systems work.

Moreover, this reality carries particular weight for Jamaica at this moment. In the wake of destruction in parts of the west, some argued that Christmas festivities in Kingston should be cancelled in solidarity with their pain. The instinct was understandable, but incomplete.

Grief deserves acknowledgement, yet livelihoods also depend on continuity. Work must continue, opportunity must circulate, and the show, at times, must go on. Recovery is not served by stillness alone, but by movement, by recognising that rebuilding often requires looking beyond where we stand to where possibility still exists.

As we look towards 2026, a hard truth becomes unavoidable: The world no longer pauses for the unready. It does not slow down to convince the hesitant, and it does not intervene for those who refuse to decide.

Progress behaves the same way. Courage now looks like self-authorship, both individually and collectively. It means deciding before comfort arrives, acting before permission is granted, and accepting that clarity often follows movement rather than preceding it.

For Jamaica, this requires an honest reckoning with inefficiency, outdated approaches, and habits that no longer serve us. Pride without performance is fragile, and sovereignty without strategy is symbolic. If Jamaica were to change one thing in 2026 it should be our comfort with systems that do not work as they should. We have normalised delays, inefficiency, and excuses, then wondered why productivity stalls. Courage from leadership would mean abandoning the safety of low expectations, setting standards, enforcing them, and demanding discipline and output across the public and private sectors alike.

No country advances on potential alone. It advances on consistent, productive work, and staying in the past will not make us competitive, just as staying offended will not make us prosperous or staying cautious will make us relevant. Why? Because safety does not build leaders; it creates dependence, and dependence is incompatible with the future we claim to want.

What makes this moment even more unforgiving is that the cost of inaction is no longer abstract. In a faster, more competitive world, falling behind does not announce itself with crisis; it happens quietly, through missed opportunities, declining influence, and the slow erosion of relevance. When innovation passes you by, when talent leaves, when decisions are made elsewhere without your input, the loss is cumulative. Irrelevance does not arrive overnight; it is accumulated through repeated choices of familiarity over adaptation and comfort over courage. By the time the consequences are visible the gap is no longer closing; it is widening.

Those who will shape 2026 will not be the most protected. They will be the most willing — willing to risk reputation, to move early, to correct course, and to walk away from stagnant rooms and outdated games. This applies to individuals, institutions, as well as nations. Courage is the bridge, but it only matters if it is crossed.

No one pulls us free anymore. We pull ourselves. We choose movement over grievance, responsibility over excuse, and agency over nostalgia. And when that choice is made, something shifts. The moment we stop waiting to be saved we become capable of leading. The moment we stop asking for sympathy and start insisting on excellence our position in the world changes.

That is the choice before us. That is the work of 2026.

And, yes, it requires courage.

Best wishes!

Lisa Hanna is a former Member of Parliament, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.