2021 is here.

The end of 2020 was met with more joy than just about any year in the recent memory for most of us, and with good reason.

A common theme of 2020 was how so many staples or perceived giants crumbled and fell under the pandemic’s heavy trail of destruction. Governments, economies and large corporations suffered like never before seen since World War II.

However, there’s a more important aspect of life that also suffered heavily, us.

The world wasn’t exactly in a great place to just add the burden of a pandemic to. 2020 is the year that gave us an idea of what’s like as a human, to just collapse under the pressure. It’s like being in a video game, playing on a hard level, then all of a sudden you get shoved into the most advanced level without being given anytime to practice.

The isolation, being away from people showed us just how much we need them. We are relational beings, we’re not meant to live alone. That struck us to the very core.

The fear, constantly having to walk around with your mind thinking about all the things that go could wrong, and all your loved ones who might catch the disease or how the pandemic affects them psychologically and financially.

The uncertainty, dealing with a new virus that quickly mutates and that keeps returning wave after wave making us unable to look forward, not with any positive vibes anyhow.

The stress, losing our livelihood is to say the least a major stress factor that can ruin just about every single second of our day, especially if you have a family that you provide for or sick loved ones you care for.

The pain, indescribable trying to explain what it to lose someone, not to mention not being able to say goodbye because of this retched disease’s contagious nature.

So let’s call it.
The year 2020 was a horrible year.
It’s important to admit that, and to be okay with it.
Sometimes under the guise of positive thinking, we don’t properly discern what should be described as bad from what’s good.
There’s a difference between looking for a silver lining in the mud, and thinking that the mud was all silver.

So when you’re reading this, if you’re thinking about all those people who keep boasting on their social media about how much they achieved in 2020, don’t let it weigh you down. It’s great for them, but that’s their life, their journey, not yours.
You’re on a different path and it’s perfectly okay to say that 2020 was not only a horrible year, but also in many ways useless and just spewing of evil and pain.

What matters is what comes next after that.

What matters now, is the fight to come back from 2020.

So many things around us failed us, governments made mistakes, lots of people were ignorant and careless with health safety protocols, and many of those in privileged situations showed just how out of touch they are with us.

So we don’t have much to rely on, except us.
2020 was the litmus test, and so now the work begins.

Many of our flaws were exposed during quarantine.
For example, if you’d set a new year’s resolution on 31st of December 2019 to read more books, and yet you still didn’t, that’s on you.
That’s alright, we’re human and we all make those new year resolutions and fail to live up to them, but we sometimes fail to know why we failed.

This knowledge of why we failed can be a silver lining to let us find something useful to take with us.

There’s however a more important idea to ponder at from 2020.
Who’s to tell that 2021 isn’t going to be 2020.2. If that’s the case, are we just gonna go through the same suffering and pain in the same way?

To make it more clear, we shouldn’t try to just wait a bad year out, we should aspire to outgrow it.

Evolution has been a part of our make up for millions of years, yet we slowed it down with our technological advances. 2020 was a throwback to times we humans had to adapt to sudden changing circumstances. Those who simply tried to outlast the times, perished.

We can’t afford to just hang out in life anymore, because sadly it’s not waiting for us.
We all need to grow, and evolve.

Does it sound almost annoyingly optimistic and perhaps out of touch?
Maybe annoying, but not out of touch.
If you know exactly what you could be doing to do that, don’t let procrastination win again.

If you suffer from anxiety and other mental health issues that keep you from being able to handle what a crappy year like 2020 can throw at you, then don’t shirk away from that therapist’s appointment, you need it.

If you were always down because you felt being in this imaginary race you put yourself in next to some people around you, kick that idea away as far as possible, it’s stalling you. Grow, and grow at your own pace.

For our own sake, for the sake of those who love us, we need to beat any other years that come like 2020. It’s gonna take time and so much work and painful hours.
Whether it’s dealing with anger issues, dieting challenges, family quarrels, personality flaws, career advances, or any other “inconvenience” that we know working on would be good for us, now is the time to take it head on.

2021 is here, let’s give it our best, we owe it to ourselves.

Be safe, take care.