How to plan for the new year?

It’s a well-established ritual. At the beginning of December, Renaud and Alexandra* together imagine the greeting card that they will send to their family, friends and colleagues. She draws, he writes, or the other way around. But since 2021, the heart is no longer in it. “Times have changed,” they sigh.

Political instability (in first place among the concerns of the French according to the French Priorities barometer of L’ObSoCo/Cevipof, December 2025), rise of populism, climate disaster underway, wars and threats of war… It must be said that there is no shortage of reasons for concern. With the risk of withdrawal that they entail. But how do contemporary crises and challenges differ from those which marked the post-war period, for example?

During the Trente Glorieuses – the years 1945-1975 – “there was a certain optimism towards the future”, explains the philosopher Claire Marin: “We believed that peace would be lasting, that the world would be under control, but today we are experiencing the opposite, and great uncertainty extends to all areas of our lives. Over the past twenty years, we have had experiences that seemed impossible to us, in a succession of moments of astonishment. »

The heatwave of 2003, the financial crisis of 2008, the series of terrorist attacks which hit several countries in Europe, the Covid-19 pandemic are all shocks which have lastingly shaken us. The environmental crisis and the war in Ukraine, to name but a few, form a sort of anxiety-provoking backdrop to our current affairs.

For Sylvie Droit-Volet, professor of psychology at Clermont Auvergne University (Puy-de-Dôme) who works on our relationship with time, there is no doubt that these elements impact our vision of the future. “Past, present and future are linked and together constitute what we call the “time horizon”,” she begins, before explaining: “The idea we have of our future depends largely on our present and our past experiences. In psychology, we also use the term “prospective memory”, because these are the same cognitive processes, based on memory, which allow us to project ourselves into the past or into the future. »

Stimulate our vigilance

The philosopher Xavier Pavie, professor at Essec, in Cergy (Val-d’Oise), adds: “Uncertainty is not bad in itself: it stimulates our vigilance and our capacity to adapt. But today, it has become an a priori fear. Social networks can be a form of refuge from thinking about tomorrow. In reality, by sticking to the present, algorithms induce monotony, impose an imagination on us and ultimately hinder our ability to act. »

Thus, in a world that seems less and less predictable to us, uncertainty fuels fear and fear fuels isolation which, in turn, fuels feelings of insecurity and uncertainty about the future. How to get out of this vicious circle? “We are social animals,” replies Sylvie Droit-Volet. Since prehistoric times, we have developed the habit of coming together to face adversity. » This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why the isolation experienced during periods of confinement has so profoundly shaken our society.

An expert associated with the Jean-Jaurès Foundation in Paris, Thierry Germain is a man in the field. In particular, he studies the notebooks of grievances and proposals that the Association of Rural Mayors of France launched in 2019 following the yellow vest movement. “The desire to act, not to suffer, to change things is always present in the French population,” he notes, impressed by the richness of the proposals and visions of the future developed jointly in the approximately 20,000 registers identified.

“The registers of grievances are full of expectations, particularly ecological ones,” he underlines, “but how has this voice from citizens been taken into account? » For him, the rhythm of political life is too jerky and the voice of citizens, although requested in the great national debate or in citizens’ conventions, is not sufficiently followed up with effects. “For them to feel committed to a common future, public action must be deployed clearly over time. Otherwise, solicited by too frequent and poorly followed reforms, their relationship to the future wears out,” he analyzes.

It’s all in balance

The researcher does not despair, however, convinced that we have the resources to project ourselves into the future. “There are a lot of them!” Expertise, experience, science and imagination… But it’s like a good cooking recipe: you need all the ingredients, measured in the right proportions, so that none is missing or overwhelms the others. You then have to find the salad bowl in which you can mix everything! In a democracy, these are first and foremost elections, but also businesses, associations, citizen groups, local authorities. »

And Thierry Germain cites as an example what happened in the valleys of the Alpes-Maritimes, devastated by storm Alex in 2020, or in Gironde after the fires of the summer of 2022, when the public authorities, by joining forces with all components of civil society, were able to play their role in encouraging residents to imagine the future of their territory after reconstruction. “Preparing for the future is a fantastic democratic exercise,” enthuses Thierry Germain.

Therefore, it could be tempting to place all our difficulties on our managers and our representatives. “We also have personal resources to mobilize,” explains Sylvie Droit-Volet. We spontaneously develop protection or adaptation mechanisms to get out of what bogs us down in a painful past or a too dark future. These are very simple things: living in the present, enjoying the beauty of nature, ordinary moments with family or friends… This can involve spiritual life or meditation,” she notes, noting that the numerous retreat options seem to respond to a real need.

“We can act on ourselves,” adds the philosopher Xavier Pavie, who seeks clues from the great thinkers of Antiquity. “Thought exercises, which mobilize our memory and our imagination, can help us to put at bay the violence of the affects which pass through us, such as fear of the future, and to free us from the information bubbles which keep us in a narrowness and rigidity of mind. Writing down your thoughts, or simply taking stock of the day in the evening – as advised by the Roman statesman and thinker Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) – allows us to weigh the relationship between our expectations and our experiences. »

According to ancient philosophers, he further explains, dimensions of our daily life such as food, dialogue with others, the relationship with our body, can also become “spiritual exercises” as long as we live them with the intention of gaining inner freedom.

The experience of art also develops in itself useful resources for projecting oneself into the future. Confrontation with a work, musical, pictorial or literary, decenters and brings into contact with the personality of artists. It also places the individual in a collective – a public – with varied sensibilities. We spend time with a work and it can resonate in our memory.

The link resource

So what do we need to plan for the future? Claire Marin’s response is radical: “Our resources are first and foremost human connections, which are forged daily through attention to the little things. Relationships of this type do not thrive on the extraordinary or exceptional, but on a certain frequency, to build a sensitive and shared experience of time which allows us to imagine the future. »

The philosopher adds another characteristic: discretion. “The links suffer from their staging,” she points out. They are of the intimate order, and must keep something invisible. »

A year has ended. What happened will no longer change. The news remains uncertain and, in part, worrying. But we can work to look differently at what we have no control over in order to grasp the sometimes hidden beauties or discern what conditions our way of seeing things.

To help us, our four interlocutors share four points of attention which are all questions that everyone can take up. “What do we see first? » suggests Thierry Germain. “What do we do with our time? » suggests Xavier Pavie. “What is it about what I listen to or watch that weakens my ability to act? » breathes Sylvie Droit-Violet. “Am I cultivating truly human connections? » asks Claire Marin. So many great avenues to get started in the year ahead.

*First names have been changed.