In a timely bit of serendipity, Peter sent me a quote this morning that triggered a whole cascade of thinking. That happens. Actually, I could riff for a long while on the binary nature of inspiration and just what a pain in the ass it is to commit to a regular publishing schedule. But never mind, let’s focus instead of end of year milestones. My employer resets our business clock on 1 July. I have no idea how they got to that date; It’s not the end of the year and it’s not the end of the NZ tax year. It’s just… in the middle. Today also happens to be the Winter Solstice, a nice astronomical and pagan bit of yearly punctuation. We strange humans tend to use these more or less arbitrary dates as a time for reflection – both backwards and forwards. I struggle now a bit with both directions, particularly in the personal context, but I do try to participate in the annual ruminations if only because they give me a chance to revisit my little wins log.

Allison, Ruth, Nat and I have reason to take pride in what we’ve added here. While on a daily basis it often feels like we’re just spinning our wheels, I can see the throughline. I’ve watched how a central story line with a core Big Bad over the course of an entire season can gradually change the trajectory of hundreds of people (thank you, Dan, that metaphor still serves me so well). I’ve witnessed the change in language, the evolution of priorities, the increasingly obvious signs of capable leadership at all levels, and take pleasure and a bit of hubris in the knowledge of our part in those changes. But perhaps my greatest bit of inner glow comes from evidence of the growing cognizance of the forward looking Big Bad. “It’s the economy, stupid,” to quote an old presidential campaign. It’s not us, it’s everyone. It’s not a business cycle, it’s an escalator of vertical change in which we are all trapped together. These are the people you are going to be with for the single most transformative decade in human history. You better like them. You better like yourself. There’s no getting off now.

"Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different." ~ C.S. Lewis