When Did We Stop Expecting More
Once, New Year conversations in the Virgin Islands brimmed with big ambitions: better schools, local opportunities, and reliable healthcare. Today, hopes have narrowed to basic services—consistent water, passable roads, steady electricity—and the larger question of why we no longer permit ourselves to dream.
There was a time in the Virgin Islands when New Year’s talk was about possibility. Families, church groups and friends at the rum shop debated grander futures: a regional leader in education, an economy that offered opportunity at home, healthcare you could access without a plane ticket.
Those conversations fuelled community expectation and imagination. Now, many of those conversations have quieted. The New Year wish list has shrunk from bold visions to essentials: reliable water pressure, roads you can drive without memorising potholes, electricity that doesn’t flicker out when a storm blows through, a government office that answers the phone.
They are the fundamentals of a functioning society, the baseline that lets people plan their lives and nurture hope. Young people leave not because they do not love these islands, but because home has stopped feeling like a place that allows them to dream. Growing up watching parents fight for basics teaches a hard lesson: survival is the ceiling.
When the expectation for more is repeatedly deferred, imagination atrophies and ambition shifts elsewhere. For residents of the BVI, this is more than lament. What would it take to restore confidence in public services and to re-open the horizon of possibility? Practical steps matter: sustained investment in water infrastructure and roads, reliable storm-resilient electricity systems, accountable public institutions with transparent responses.
But just as crucial is rebuilding trust—so that people feel their leaders and systems are working for them, not simply asking them to endure. Community action will be part of the answer. Local voices, civic groups, business leaders and government must articulate a shared set of priorities and demand measurable progress.
Investments in education and healthcare, paired with support for young entrepreneurs and career pathways, can help keep talent at home and make the islands a place where dreams can grow again. This New Year, the wish may start with water and lights, but it should not end there. The deeper hope is for permission to dream—to rebuild a collective expectation that the Virgin Islands can be more than a place to survive.
It is time to remember what we once imagined and to choose to expect it again. Adapted from an editorial originally published by Virgin Islands News Online.
Primary source: VINO