All I want for Christmas is less volatility
Welcome to Mike Lawrence's Christmas wish list!
What a year. It’s been such an unpredictable year that “2025 volatility” is a highly-ranked keyword.
And words are just the beginning. In a year where “rage bait” is the Oxford word of the year (that’s two words but that’s volatility for ya) while “6-7” is Dictionary.com’s word of the year (that’s a number, but rules don’t apply anymore), I want to “un-volatize” (my word of the year) things a bit with a holiday wish that perhaps we can all agree on.
As a communication partner for manufacturers and so many others, we’ve ridden the 2025 roller coaster together. 2025 has been the wildest year since… 2024. And may be the wildest until… 2026.
And speaking of wild. And crazy. And guy…
…this holiday blog is inspired by the classic Steve Martin’s “Holiday Wish” from “Saturday Night Live” 39 years ago. While we can’t ignore this year’s volatility, our attitude, humor and how we choose to remember it is in our control. In the spirit of festive fun and (hopefully) laughter, this is our “Holiday Wish” for everyone.
Two wild and crazy prematurely gray guys.
Here we go:
If I had just one wish this holiday season, it would be that all the children of the world gather to sing a song of peace and harmony and how tariffs work, and supply chains too, in a spirit of love and giving that reflects the joy of the holiday season.
And if I had TWO wishes this holiday season, the first would be all the kids singing their own song about peace and tariff math and supply chains. And the second would be that I could shop online, access my work files, log on to Hulu and buy a coffee without opening three apps that require two passwords and a 9-factor authorization. [Cybersecurity is important though! Never forget that!]
And if I had THREE wishes, the first would be the kids singing about peace and harmony and tariffs and supply chains (“Carol of the Trade Balance”), the second would be going online without having to precisely type in “Hk49&%!wnsHS74+<>vH0H5*^D9G$,” and the third would be getting majority control of Nvidia, OpenAI, Alphabet and anything else AI-related so I can SLOW THEM DOWN because it’s moving too darn fast and we can HALT THE AI SLOP because it’s all “delving into leveraging synergies as we unleash robust solutions in this fast-paced world furthermore.” But if it’s going to move this fast, we’re on the AI ride with you and will keep figuring it out together.
And if I had FOUR wishes I could make this holiday, the first is of course the kids singing tariffs and supply chains in a holiday harmony (“Santa Claus Isn’t Coming To Town He Got Caught Up In Customs”), the second would be not having to “beat the Nordpass clock” with an authorization code that expires in four seconds, the third would be having a majority stake in anything AI to slow down the slop while making me a trillionaire so I can buy the Cleveland Browns and make them less sloppy, and my fourth wish would be having the power to stop time, go back in the past and even check out the future, sort of like Thanos in “The Avengers.” That way I could re-do awkward conversations and meetings (“Why did you make that lame joke, Lawrence?” Zip back ten minutes. “Fixed! It never happened.”), we could talk with each other longer without worrying about the clock (No more “hard stops"), I could win my fantasy league (“I’ll pass on Justin Jefferson.”) and extend the weekend by a few days months so I can watch more streaming content. Otherwise, I’m never, ever going to watch “The Crown.”
And if I had… Oh wait, I completey forgot about mind-reading! And controlling the weather to slow down climate change. And knowing how to detect deepfakes from the real thing! And reading the news with both eyes open! And creating happy productive workspaces! And removing all phishing scams (“You will be charged $4,500 for a PlayStation 7 unless you click this link; please have your bank account number ready.”). Plus, make it so when you report those scams, something actually happens. And make it so vegetables taste like a Dairy Queen Blizzard! And making 2026 less volatile than 2025.
This has all the effect of saying “abracadabra” in an empty room.
So maybe I rethink things a bit.
Like, is the thing with the singing kids even realistic? Gathering those kids together would be a logistical nightmare, and how could they ever write a song they could agree on, and what if some are really bad singers? So, let’s reorganize. We build a billion agentic GPT kids with Cynthia Erivo voices ––or build 10 agents to each build ten more agents, and so on, like a Ponzi scheme of singers––then write the song in ChatGPT and use Suno for the harmonies. It may not be as magical as the real thing, but it’s the thought that counts! And then we put those agent kids to work fulfilling all the wishes we’ve been asking for, and we all live as time-hopping, no-AI-slopping, mind-reading, weather-controlling, all-powerful code-breaking trillionaires… in the spirit of peace and harmony of the holiday season.
Or we can stop wishing for more and keep doing what we love with people we like and respect as we continue to connect the way we always have.
I think we can make it happen, no wishing needed.
Have a great holiday, everyone, regardless what you wish for!