What has 2020 taught us?

As the year came to an end, I find myself pondering about the biggest lesson the past year has taught me. It has been very difficult for all of us in different ways. It was indeed a season of losing. Or was it really? Perhaps many might say it has been, but I still think that maybe, and just maybe, we can look at the silver lining. We lost the normal and entered into a new normal. We lost family but learned who our real friends are. We’ve lost jobs but gained new opportunities and, most of all, we have found better purpose.

Our busy lives have left us with routine -- the daily grind. We have been used to going about our business, same old, same old, and now, we have put on a new armor as we confront so many things new. We are not used to “new” and it is not surprising. It is certainly hard. It’s the kind of new that has left us thinking and overthinking, yet it has pushed us to be mindful of the most basic and the most important, instead of the most urgent.

Our focus has switched to what has to be in place and most of which has either been neglected or unrealized. People are developing a better understanding of wholeness – on what is good for all. We are learning to give more and to share. To trade better and to appreciate our own. In other words, we have hit the Re-start button and we are finding out what needs to stay and what needs to go. It takes a lot of courage to realize all these things but it takes even more courage to move things forward. Our priorities have changed and the basic matters more than ever. The simplest of things have been the greatest influencers and surely, a better future depends fully on these.

On the other hand, the “new” things continue to help us survive. Technology most of all is connecting us and adapting to such means will greatly multiply the basics. Indeed, life is a mix of roses and thorns and from the pain and the ugly, we grow beauty. This is my biggest lesson. It has been my biggest lesson with or without a pandemic – beauty from ashes as they say... trusting that our sorrows have purpose.

From my family to yours, I wish everyone a blessed new year. The pandemic is not over, but we have grown stronger together. Let us heal as one.