MOST of the world can’t wait for 2020 to end so we can begin a new chapter computed by calendar year.

But life doesn’t work like that. Flipping a calendar page does nothing to the reality that is life as human beings live it. COVID-19? Your political feelings? The lives of loved ones that have gone? Your lack of a job right now?

When the international news networks reported a few days ago that the United States had recorded one death to COVID-19 for every 1,000 people living there, my mental maths skills went into overdrive.

I mean – you try it. if we recorded one death to COVID-19 for every 1,000 people living in Uganda, how many people would have died of this one disease in 2020? Using the last population census we conducted here, that would mean losing the entire population of a district like Kalangala or Obongi.

And that’s just to COVID-19 – there is more trouble out there.

You could find despair in the thought if not for the fact that we all have access to ideas positioned in exactly the opposite manner.

And as I was doing the computation and trying to solve the global problem of keeping people alive in a pandemic, I realised that I had only found the time because I had been waiting for some fellow to show up for work.

Robert Kalevu is a mason or paver technician – I don’t know which term to use. I had used him for a small job before. When I next needed more work done I called him up again and he agreed to be on location early in the morning.

He wasn’t, hence my distraction with CNN and public health issues on a global scale.

When I called him up to find out where he was he didn’t answer the phone the first two times, so I called somebody else. An hour later, Kalevu returned my call.

I confidently notified him that he had lost the job, to which he promptly declared: “Mukama Katonda!” (‘My Lord God!’).

“No,” I quickly told him in return, “This has nothing to do with your Lord God. This is all about you.”

He was quite surprised, having no clue I was going to continue. I cut off the call and called him back, then spent five minutes elaborating what I meant.

I explained that he had done one small job for me but I had many others to get done over the years, in future. If he kept a level head and worked reliably, all that would be his. I also told him that time, for me, was to be taken seriously – not as an indicative estimate of possibilities, as he seemed to think.

By the close of the conversation he was in agreement with me that he was fully to blame for losing that job, and had to do better in future. He also understood that if the replacement person impressed me they would probably be called up again instead of him – unless he was reliable the next time I called him up.

I seriously hoped that he would take the conversation to heart because everything around us depends on this one aspect that we CAN control – our attitudes.

With the right attitude, there is nothing COVID-19 will do to you – because you should be capable of protecting others and making them protect you from getting it. With the right attitude, your political feelings will cause you less bile; and so on and so forth.

Attitude. Mindset. Perspective.

As I type this out, Kalevu is here doing another small piece of work for me. He called me up at eight on the dot to confirm he was setting off to report for duty. His face mask is firmly covering his mouth and nose – yet when I first met him he was quite certain that people from Kinawattaka were immune to disease, in general.

Attitude. Mindset. Perspective.

After 2020 that is the one thing we need in order to manage 2021 better.

In fact, I am not wishing you a Happy New Year right now – I wish you a Happy New Attitude in 2021; A Happy New Mindset in 2021; and A Happy New Perspective in 2021.