Joshua Miller: Hello, everyone. My name is Joshua Miller. I’m just one of the many people that we have working here at the Autism News Network. I wanted to create this video as a way to wrap up 2020 and talk about what I believe our goals should be here at the Autism News Network for the upcoming 2021 year.

Joshua Miller: A lot has happened in 2020. A lot has happened. A lot of stuff has happened that I didn’t think would happen when I was watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve 2019 into New Year’s Day 2021 or 2020 rather, sorry. We’ve had a global pandemic. We’ve had our country shut down, among many countries that have shut down around the world. We have thousands of people in this country that have died and continue to die from the effects of COVID-19. We’ve had protests, riots. We’ve had people losing their jobs. We’ve had people going to the food banks for food, because they have nowhere else to turn. We have evictions going on. It’s been a very rough year. It seems like that this year has gone on forever, but thank God it’s coming to an end. And I pray that 2021 will be better than 2020. It has to be, right?

Joshua Miller: I think it is important that we try and remember the positive that has happened when we look back on 2020. I believe that will help. That’s important for our mental health and well-being. I pray that for people watching this video that 2020 hasn’t been all bad. Some of us may have to look and search deeper to find that positive event that happened. I believe and I pray that everyone has at least that one thing that happened that was good this year. And when we think back on 2020, it’s important to remember what that was.

Joshua Miller: I know for me, my Mom bought a house for the first time. So we moved out of an apartment in North Charleston and into this house in Saint George, where it’s nice and quiet and peaceful. I was able to get another dog as a pet. His name is Bailey. He’s not the dog that’s sitting on my lap right now that you may see, because that one’s Milo AKA Killer. I feel like I’m making progress in my own mental health and trying to get better and working through past traumas with my psychiatrist and therapist. For the first time, I’m really making progress there, so I know I’ll also be looking back at that. What are some of the positive events that happened for you in 2020? If you like, you can share in the comments below. But like I said, I believe it’s important that we try and remember what that was.

Joshua Miller: I know that for me, it’s like I said, it was my Mom buying this house, getting another pet. I also got to see the International Space Station fly by in October here in Saint George, so I thought that was cool. You didn’t have to use binoculars. It was just like a very fast moving, not fast like a shooting star fast, but it was a fast moving star. I also got to see the Christmas Star, which is really just the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. It looked like one massive star from our vantage point here on Earth. That was the first time that those two planets, at any rate, looked like that, were that close together from again, our vantage point here on Earth in almost 800 years. To put that into perspective, the Scottish hero William Wallace that the movie Braveheart was based on wasn’t even born yet when that happened last time, so that was pretty amazing.

Joshua Miller: That’s also some of the things that I look back on, because I believe it’s really important that we try and focus on the positive. Because if we focus on the negative, it is going to be detrimental for us all. I’m not saying that it’ll be easy, because I know that a lot of y’all have lost loved ones and will continue to lose loved ones because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But I believe and I pray at any rate that 2021 will be better. And I pray also that we’ll see the end of the pandemic in 2021, God willing.

Joshua Miller: I also want to talk about what my goals are for the Autism News Network for the upcoming year. As I’ve said, we have a lot of talented people here at the Autism News Network. My goal here is I would love to strive to have at least one new video posted a week, because I believe that if we want viewers and to keep the viewers and to keep the viewers like y’all, then we need to have more videos up more often. I believe that we’re capable of that, because again, we have a lot of talented people here. We’ve just got to put our minds to it.

Joshua Miller: I know we got one person who’s really good at cars. We got another young lady here who’s really good at poetry. We got a couple of guys here that are really good at video games. We got a lot of talented people, and I believe it’s important to have videos like that to show that not every autistic person is good at computers. I feel like that’s a stereotype that is developed and it’s very incorrect, because God knows my talent is not in computers. I can’t code to save my life. That’s why I prefer antiques, they’re just easier to put together. So I believe we’re capable of that, and I believe that should be our goal for 2021. I also want to ask y’all if y’all have any suggestions on what you would like to see on this channel, then please let us know in the comments below. Because we’re still trying to find our footing and our way in this because it’s still new, and any suggestions on what y’all might think would be important to talk about please let us know.

Joshua Miller: I also want to wrap this video up by saying thank you to all of our viewers, because without y’all this channel would go nowhere. I know that I speak for everyone here at the Autism News Network when I say thank you for watching and thank you for staying by us as we tried again to try and find our footing in creating these videos. So that’s it. Hopefully, 2021 will be better. As we close the dark novel known as 2020, I just want to say thank you. I hope that everyone had a merry Christmas, to those that celebrate it. And God be with us in the upcoming year, and God bless y’all. This is Joshua Miller signing off.