“What This Year Has Meant For Me”

December 1, 2020

IN THE YEAR 2020, Chuck German owner of the Holland Cutting Board Co. became addicted to bad news daily. The 66-year-old from Holland, Michigan, couldn’t stop checking the narratives of the deadly pandemic, police brutality, protests, conspiracy theories, and politics as each crisis unfolded, particularly in every corner of the world. Every 10 minutes yielded another dire post on CNN or Instagram.

“By the middle of the pandemic, I was feeling really flat,” says German, who is the owner of his company the Holland Cutting Board Co. “I felt like humanity sucked in general, but I wasn’t able to concentrate on anything, because I’d be constantly thinking about checking the latest updates.”

Like many people, German had become obsessed with our world’s seemingly increasing danger—a response that has roots in our evolutionary development. Stories of fear and peril pique our anxiety. They put our brains on high alert, an advantage that once protected our early hominid ancestors from predators and natural disasters, but one that now leaves us “doom scrolling,” endlessly refreshing social media and online news to stay abreast of the latest threats.

Our hearts race, and our minds keep constant vigil for the next perceived catastrophe. We yearn to feel prepared, so we become addicted to the updates, coming back for more until the world seems far worse than it ever has before since the day before.

In the United States our most valuable resource was and still is at risk:

Plenty of tragedies are happening to keep us glued to our screens. The pandemic has killed more than 860,000 people around the world as of early September—and that number continues to rise even as the crisis calls attention to rampant social and economic inequality.

We’ve been battered by record-setting wildfires in California and Australia, an intense Atlantic hurricane season, crop-mangling locust swarms in East Africa, and a massive chemical explosion that obliterated the port of Beirut and killed at least 190 people and caused as much as $15 billion in damage. Protests against police brutality and symbols of Confederate- and colonial-era oppression have brought millions of people to the streets the world over. As if all of this wasn’t enough, it’s also a highly divisive election year in the United States. We need leadership to move forward…….

To be sure, 2020 hasn’t been all bad. Telemedicine is making healthcare more accessible than ever. Anti-racist books are topping bestseller lists. Way more people are washing their hands. Oh yes lets not forget our very best friend hand sanitizer. Americans have adopted hundreds of thousands of shelter pets, and now it seems as if everybody has a dog.

If any year ever feels like the worst, it’s mostly because our brains have a tendency to judge the present more harshly. Unfettered media consumption skews our perception, and it becomes easy to slide into unhealthy patterns of belief.

You don’t have to pull the plug on your whole digital life to get a better outlook on the year. According to experts, learning to tame your persistent negative beliefs or your penchant for looking at the past through rose-colored glasses could act as a much-needed respite from this year’s stress.

In 2020 it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Our ancestors might disagree that 2020 is the worst year on record. Sure, frightening things are happening, but many of those things happened in the past, too, including the 1918 flu pandemic, during which 50 million people died. Plus, the belief that civilization is on the decline is a tradition as old as civilization itself. Even Ancient Athenians complained in the fifth century B.C. that their democracy wasn’t what it used to be. These days, we call that belief “decline bias.”

Before the pandemic, a majority of Americans already believed the country was going downhill. About 60 percent of respondents thought that the nation’s influence on the world was decreasing, according to a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center. Only 12 percent of the people who responded to the poll were “very optimistic” about the country’s future, while 31 percent were “somewhat pessimistic” and 13 percent were “very pessimistic” about America’s future.

Now, Americans might feel worse about the future than they did before, especially because stay-at-home orders and isolation have been affecting our mental health and every business and its owners, which in turn increases the likelihood that we’ll see the world through the lens of negativity bias.

One thing is for certain though the importance of family, friends, Church and God.

My company has survived for now as the pandemic rages on taking every living human being in its path. Cancer was always on my mind but Co-Vid19 has cancer beat by a long shot. We are grateful for our company God has truly been gracious that we are still producing safe, reliable hardwood cutting boards. With more people cooking at home more now than ever before we believe now is the right time to think about purchasing a new cutting board. We have the most up-to-date board oils and B’s oil waxes.

I want to take this moment in silence and pause to remember every life that was lost to the Pandemic families and friends here and around the world that are not with us here today……..

As 2020 comes to a close we look forward to a new year “2021” let it bring happiness, joy, unity, encouragement, trust, the core truth in what we believe in as a nation.

I am deeply grateful to my staff of fine hard working design individuals for their continued support for the Holland Cutting Board Company, in Holland MI. Especially Norma Ryan, my best friend and retired Mayor of Brownsville, PA. She has been the driving force behind having a cutting board company to be a successful company I owe so much to her continuous amount of energy. Michelle Vasiloff she has been very supportive in search of a new Manufacturing Building PA. We are working very diligently to bring Brownsville Manufacturing to Brownsville, PA in 2021.

My daily challenge to myself is to be part of the solution in developing new design cutting boards and create a need keeping all people safe from viruses and harmful bacteria that can lurk on every cutting board surface. Becoming a warrior to fight cutting board surfaces keeping them free of harm that is my goal and its my passion.

Here at the Holland Cutting Board Co. we roll up our sleeves not just today or tomorrow but everyday bringing you the finest in hardwood products that will last for many generations to come. Years from now, our children, our grandchildren, our family and friends will look at us and say where were we when the stakes were so high. They will ask us what was it like. I don’t want us to just tell them how we felt. I want us to tell them what we did.

Lastly a very big thank you to all our customers and companies believing in us and what it takes in being a successful company today, tomorrow and in the future.

Written By,

Chuck German