Small talk is the cartilage of a good conversation.

A healthy conversation is like a game of tennis. The game only works if you hit the ball back and forth to each other.

People have forgotten how important small talk is because of the lockdowns and physical-social-distancing over the last 2.5 years. Holiday parties, birthday gatherings, weddings, funerals and those awkward first-day-on-the-job team lunches are all part of the bonding we humans need in a community.

I hope 2023 gets us all back into the game so we can play a little word tennis.

“The dogs are barking Quixote.

A sign we move forward, Sancho, a sign we move forward.”

― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote: Man of La Mancha

A friend told me the other day that it takes courage and eating some humble pie to book a financial loss and move on rather than holding on in the hope of making yourself whole in the distant future. Not many people have the appetite for that flavour of pie. 

Another hard-learned lesson is that you never have to make it back the way you lost it. That’s also part of the fun and the journey. When you are young, and there’s still meat on the bone, you get the luxury of time and experimentation on the way up.

Many intelligent people will be voluntarily and involuntarily unwinding covid brain fog decisions made during the irrational exuberance of the covid era. 2023 will be about who has the courage and humility to course correct and swallow the bitter medicine. There will be some messy public meltdowns where a lot of money is lost and some private ones that are snuck under the rug that they, their spouse and the tax man know about. 

Fortitude and temperance are critical attributes in 2023.