Keller @ Large: Time To Look Forward, Not Back

BOSTON (CBS) -- One of my WBZ colleagues and I were talking about the stock market downturn that's been making headlines recently, and she said she had checked out the damage to her 401(k) online - quote - "even though I knew I shouldn't look" and that struck me as a good idea for dealing with the week of year-in-review immersion we're facing.

Maybe it's best that we not look back too closely at 2018, or at least at all the bad news that it delivered. Please note that not looking doesn't mean not knowing. It means our focus instead should be on the new year, and what we can do better.

We will likely get the final Mueller report next year, and if he finds further high crimes were committed we need to focus on more than just punishing the perps. There needs to be more agreement on what we expect of people in public life, legally and ethically. And those who want standards could do a better job of role-modeling themselves. The newly-elected Democrats in Congress need to step up and push the establishment in a more productive direction, and the same should be expected of the new Republicans in the senate, which includes two businessmen, Mitt Romney and Mike Braun, who should assert their own version of what conservative economic principles mean.

This was a year of turmoil in our politics, massive fear and loathing and ever more divisiveness. By looking ahead this week instead of dwelling on that fiasco, maybe we can start the new year with a different attitude.

Because if we inject 2019 with the same bitterness that marked 2018, we'll pay a terrible price, in the new year and beyond.

Talk back to me via email at keller@wbztv.com, or use Twitter, @kelleratlarge.