Let Us Strengthen Our Will to Do Something!

"I wish that we not only retain but also strengthen our will to do something in the New Year, so that we are not overcome by apathy and resignation," Hungarian President János Áder said in his televised New Year's greetings.

He quoted from an essay by the recently deceased world-famous Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi that "we can live our lives as chess pieces, guided by external forces, or we can take the reins into our own hands. (...) We can see ourselves as victims all the time, but how much more satisfying it is to immerse ourselves in the work."

He stressed that last year, too, there were many people who did not give up, who overcame inertia and discouragement. As he said, for many, the start of the new year involves a clean slate, a calendar: "we look for holidays, we record family events, important deadlines." But reality sometimes rewrites plans, he added.

János Áder also said that the generations before us had lived through many wars, when their lives did not follow their natural order. He cited the example of writer Sándor Márai, who wrote in his diary how strange it was for him to leaf through a 1945 calendar during the siege of Budapest. During the worst months of the Second World War, everyone got used to making plans and thinking in terms of the future. "Today, we are in a way in the same situation with the pandemic, which is now in its second year," he said.

He highlighted that 2021 was a lot like 2020, with better and worse periods alternating as the epidemic waves. The difference between the two years of the epidemic was that in 2021, the necessary means of protection were already available.

"Vaccines have allowed us to save lives" and get through the epidemic with fewer restrictions, he said, noting that today the world's most celebrated scientist is Katalin Karikó, the developer of the technology for the next-generation coronavirus vaccine.

In his speech, János Áder asked the audience to think of all those "whose names we do not even know", but who administered thousands of vaccinations every day, held the hands of the dying, ran social institutions, "protected our security, defended our borders," cultivated the land and provided services.

The New Year calendar does not yet show the month, the week, the day when "we will finally be free from the oppressive, threatening burden of the epidemic", and everyone's patience, attention and perseverance are needed to achieve this as soon as possible, the President said János Áder, quoting again Sándor Márai at the end of his speech: “What people do plays a part in what happens to them."