Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” The Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” Alice: “I don’t much care where.” The Cheshire Cat: “Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.” (from Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol)

This is the 2021 question is it not?  It is the “fork in the road” question, the “this way or that way” question the “what if” question.  This is what many of us are wondering about the coming year. This question produces anxiety and even downright depression.  It is the question about the unknown.  

As I write this COVID is causing massive amount of deaths and massive amount of business closures.  Within the past week the Governor (of California) once again shut down most of the state causing thousands of business owners—and especially restaurant owners—to face closure, no income, mounting debt, and the layoff of their staff.  The edict was that restaurants now could not offer outdoor dining for “at least” three weeks.  Many restaurants spent thousands of dollars setting up an outdoor dining setting in their parking lots, to allow for social distancing in a more open environment.  This was their lifeline to be able to continue their businesses. 

A video went viral of a restaurant owner telling the world that “everything has been taken from her” at no fault of her own.  The unfairness of the edict is shown by a production company, not 50 yards from her restaurant, setting up tents to be able to feed its crew. That visual picture tells it all.  

To her it seems, and thousands of business owners and millions of employees this question—which way shall I go—haunts them, and in many cases without answers.  

But how do you go somewhere when you can barely hold on? How do you plan with nothing but uncertainty and financial ruin facing you?  

Having been through the stark reality of losing everything in my life—twice—I can tell you from experience it’s not easy. I have fought financial ruin, depression, anxiety, emptiness and a deep sense of lostness more than once.  I have had to rebuild my life and business, and I have had to reignite my passion in the midst of everything around me falling apart. 

Here is how I have answered the “which way shall I go question” while I went through my own devastating losses? Four things helped me endure and rebuild my life:  

• I focused on my M/V/V
• I communicated frequently with my Family and Friends
• I  looked where I didn’t plan to look
• My Faith sustained me

Over the next few days my blog will expand upon these four things that helped me to eventually find my way again.  This is so appropriate for the time we are in as many are asking the question: which way shall I go?!  It also fits our season of life: Christmas and the end of the year.  Read on…carry on…keep serving.