|
{"source_url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com", "url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/if-you-had-to-pick-a-2020-goal-in-the-time-it-took-a-traffic-light-to-turn-green-what-would-yours-be/2020/01/01/1c9e0878-2c66-11ea-bcb3-ac6482c4a92f_story.html", "title": "If you had to pick a 2020 goal in the time it took a traffic light to turn green, what would yours be?", "top_image": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/r2yDsPyjI2K8XgSFkEkB1bkDNVg=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/3SAJVORMM4I6VPFTVRSIFRFJF4.jpg", "meta_img": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/r2yDsPyjI2K8XgSFkEkB1bkDNVg=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/3SAJVORMM4I6VPFTVRSIFRFJF4.jpg", "images": ["https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=3005617&cv=2.0&cj=1", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/b_kbfDrYoAhhzE7kS7v_tHxFWHE=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/65QTP5BMM4I6VPFTVRSIFRFJF4.jpg", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/yAFxThroW-CI5t-yu8Q6FsF7kHI=/1x1/www.washingtonpost.com/pb/resources/img/spacer.gif", "https://me.effectivemeasure.net/em_image", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/r2yDsPyjI2K8XgSFkEkB1bkDNVg=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/3SAJVORMM4I6VPFTVRSIFRFJF4.jpg"], "movies": [], "text": "It is human nature to set goals and priorities, and the pull to do so feels particularly powerful this year. (Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images)\n\nColumnist\n\nOnce, while driving through Long Island and singing with little restraint to Guns N\u2019 Roses, two teenagers pulled alongside my car at a stoplight.\n\nThey motioned for me to roll down my window. I did, expecting them to ask directions or what song was causing me to make those facial expressions.\n\nInstead, they said, \u201cIf you could do anything in this world, what would it be?\u201d\n\nAt the time, I was a journalist in my 20s covering crime, and one of the most depressing parts of my job came when I stood in under-resourced neighborhoods, in front of parents who hadn\u2019t yet buried their children, and they didn\u2019t have one publishable photo of that young person to hand me.\n\nOf course, at that stoplight, I didn\u2019t have time to say any of that. Feeling the pressure of a red light about to turn green, I didn\u2019t have the luxury of mulling, overanalyzing or second-guessing.\n\nI blurted out, \u201cHelp more kids get out of poverty.\u201d\n\n\u201cCool,\u201d they said. Then the light changed, and they drove off.\n\n[A 5-year-old wanted a birthday party. A 6-year-old needed school uniforms. Both were among the wishes this Virginia group granted.]\n\nI don\u2019t know if those teenagers were working on some class assignment or if they were unusually introspective, but that interaction remains one of the weirdest and most powerful ones I\u2019ve had with strangers (and I\u2019ve had some extremely weird and powerful ones). I am by nature a muller, an over-analyzer and a second-guesser. I am that person who can look at two black sweaters and before buying one, exhaust myself with calculations of price vs. practicality vs. durability vs. the question of do I even need another black sweater.\n\nIf I had been given time to think about that question, I would have probably answered differently. But the situation forced me to push aside the clutter in my mind and pick a priority. It was a Marie Kondo for the soul moment long before I had heard of Marie Kondo.\n\nAs we enter 2020, in a way we are all sitting in that car, trying to figure out what matters most. It is human nature to set goals and priorities, and the pull to do so feels particularly powerful this year. Maybe that\u2019s because last year was so draining and divisive. Or maybe that\u2019s because we are entering a new decade and that always feels full of promise and possibilities.\n\nFor some of us, the new year might see us making a phone call we have been avoiding. For others, it might push us to give up alcohol, join a gym or start searching for a new career.\n\nWhen I think about my list of hopes and plans for 2020, they can be broken down into two categories: the thought-out version and the stoplight one.\n\nWhen I spend time shaping my resolutions, I see the blue ThredUP bags in my closet that I have been meaning to fill with neglected dresses, pants and shirts. A few years ago, I decided to limit most of my clothes shopping for my kids and myself to secondhand items, and I have no regrets. It\u2019s been financially and environmentally a win. In December, when the 5-year-old complained that his size-4T jacket was too tight, I quickly found him a size-6 J. Crew jacket for $20.\n\nBut I have been less successful at clearing out the items we no longer need. One of my personal vows is that by 2021, those clothes will be cleared from our closets and drawers and passed onto people who will use them.\n\nThe most optimistic version of me also has plans this year to use less plastic, call my parents more and make my health as much of a priority as I do the health of my kids.\n\nAll of those things are important to me. They are also not what I would offer as my main priority if we only had those moments between the blink of a red light and a green one to talk.\n\nThat one, surprisingly, remains the same as the one I blurted out years ago.\n\nIn this column, I try to cover a wide range of topics that take you to places and introduce you to people you might not encounter otherwise. I feel grateful to have this platform, and I plan to use it more this year to explore ways we can help propel children who have the fewest resources toward success. I hope, with your help, to highlight solutions that are working, expose the ways children are still being failed and raise questions that for too long have gone unanswered, because politics isn\u2019t the only divide that should concern us in Washington. We know based on what the past few years alone have shown us that the prospects for many children in the region are not improving and in some ways are getting worse, despite good intentions and financial investments.\n\nWe know, based on an article that ran in The Washington Post this week, that efforts by Maryland\u2019s largest school system in recent years to close the achievement gaps between black and Latino children and their white and Asian counterparts have failed to make much of a difference. Latino students in Montgomery County\u2019s schools, according to that article, are 11 times as likely as their Asian peers to drop out of high school.\n\nWe know, based on other reports, that in 2019, a dozen school-age children and teenagers were shot or stabbed to death during a record year of homicides in the District. One of those was Maurice Scott, a 15-year-old whose face was memorialized on a mural that covers one side of a corner store where he was shot in the head by a bullet that wasn\u2019t meant for him. That mural marks the spot where D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) offered a $25,000 reward for information about who killed him and where his twin sister stood, without him, on her first day of 10th grade.\n\n[She and her twin were inseparable. Then a gunman tore the 15-year-olds apart.]\n\nWe also know that sometimes solutions come from people just asking the right questions.\n\nOn Thursday, the District is supposed to start shuttling homeless families who live at two hotels on New York Avenue NE to the two closest Metro stations so that those children can get to and from school safely and in a timely manner. That came about because an organization asked those families about their needs, advocated for them and reached out to city officials, who listened and responded.\n\nIn 2020, I hope that those children take advantage of that shuttle and that more of them make it to school on time.\n\nI hope less children become faces on murals they won\u2019t see.\n\nAnd I hope more teenagers force adults around them to stop and think about what\u2019s really important, if only for that short time it takes for a light to turn green.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["Theresa Vargas", "poverty", "children", "2020", "goals", "resolutions", "new year", "hopes", "stoplight", "traffic light", "green light"], "tags": [], "authors": ["Theresa Vargas", "Local Columnist Who Previously Wrote For The Local Enterprise Team About Poverty", "Race", "People With Disabilities.", "January At Pm"], "publish_date": null, "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "Think of it as a Marie Kondo exercise for the soul.", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "", "meta_data": {"object-hash": 1577911332, "viewport": "width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes, minimum-scale=0.5, maximum-scale=2.0", "referrer": "unsafe-url", "keywords": "Theresa Vargas, poverty, children, 2020, goals, resolutions, new year, hopes, stoplight, traffic light, green light", "news_keywords": "Theresa Vargas, poverty, children, 2020, goals, resolutions, new year, hopes, stoplight, traffic light, green light", "twitter": {"site": "@WashingtonPost", "card": "summary_large_image", "creator": "@byTheresaVargas"}, "og": {"type": "article", "site_name": "Washington Post", "url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/if-you-had-to-pick-a-2020-goal-in-the-time-it-took-a-traffic-light-to-turn-green-what-would-yours-be/2020/01/01/1c9e0878-2c66-11ea-bcb3-ac6482c4a92f_story.html", "image": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/r2yDsPyjI2K8XgSFkEkB1bkDNVg=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/3SAJVORMM4I6VPFTVRSIFRFJF4.jpg", "title": "Perspective | If you had to pick a 2020 goal in the time it took a traffic light to turn green, what would yours be?", "description": "Think of it as a Marie Kondo exercise for the soul."}, "article": {"publisher": "https://www.facebook.com/washingtonpost", "content_tier": "metered", "opinion": "false"}, "fb": {"app_id": 41245586762, "admins": 500835072}, "ansId": "DSPAQ6BMMYI6VPFTVRSIFRFJF4", "ansVersion": "0.10.4", "description": "Think of it as a Marie Kondo exercise for the soul.", "robots": "index,follow", "theme": "normal"}, "canonical_link": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/if-you-had-to-pick-a-2020-goal-in-the-time-it-took-a-traffic-light-to-turn-green-what-would-yours-be/2020/01/01/1c9e0878-2c66-11ea-bcb3-ac6482c4a92f_story.html"} |
