Goodbye, au revoir, adios: 5 things that the year 2020 taught us

It's not a secret to everyone how challenging the year 2020 was. The whole world was brought to a surprise by a pandemic and lot more natural disasters to be paired with.

At some point between the 986457 months that we've spent locked inside our homes saving the world while trying to make sense of everything that happened, we wanted 2020 to end. 

We all wanted a reset button to press and start a year over to redo what should have been done, and avoid what we could have avoided.

But in all honesty, despite all the hardships we have faced in 2020, we also gained new experiences, which lead to learning and realization of many, many things we never knew before, and never knew we needed to learn.

And so, here are five things that the year 2020 has taught us.

 

1. Be grateful

If there's one thing that we can feel and be towards the end of the year, it is to be grateful. For all the things that we've gone through in a span of one year, we are definitely lucky to be surviving to this day. 

Despite of all the challenges and struggles that we've faced or are continuously facing up until this moment, waking up in the morning, knowing that we're breathing and stilll alive, is a big blessing to be grateful of. 

This life, no matter how challenging, is something to be grateful for. 

 

2. Be kind

Kindness goes a long way. In these trying times, one of the best things we can do, aside from staying at home and wearing masks whenever we go out, is to be kind to others. A simple act of kindness can go a long way and can brighten up someone who's going thriough a hard time.

Being kind does not only count to others, but also to ourselves. We're also going through different kinds of struggle, and being kind to yourself comes in free. It heals you. It makes you believe that you've got yourself after all everything that's happening.

 

3. We will always have our family

Before the pandemic has begun, the fact that we've spent more time at work than at home can't be hidden. We've spent more time with our workmates than our family members whom we, most of the time, only see when we wake up and before we go to sleep. 

But when the lockdowns came in effect and we ended up spending more time at home, we also got to spend more time with our family members. This positively strengthened our bonds with each and every one of them. Even though we may have had a few disagreements with some of them, it's somehow part of our growth as individuals.

 

4. Every hour counts

As per the famous saying goes, "time is gold," and this time of struggle has taught us much more about how time is to be treasured. Every hour that we do something, counts, as it records our improvement and progress. Every hour that we spend together with someone, counts, because we never know when we'll see that person again, or if that'll be the last time that we will see them.

There are people who had lost a loved one this year, and as the wounds may take time to heal, every hour of trying to fix themselves counted.

The time of the countrywide lockdown called for same routine to follow every single day, but each day, each hour, each minute, each second, was something that we treasured so much and made the most of. Whether we made use of it to be productive or do nothing, it surely counted.

 

5. Discover ourselves

Yes, 2020 taught us to discover more about ourselves. Because of the lockdown measures imposed all over the country, we were left to ourselves, and we tried to learn how to sit with our own persons.

Because of the busy day-to-day hustle that everyone conquers back in the normal days, we have sometimes forgotten about who we are. During the days that we had to stay at home, we learned more about ourselves, we learned how to sit with our own emotions, we have discovered more about how our thoughts run, and we have learned about many things about ourselves that we never knew before.

And more importantly, even though it was a little difficult for others, we learned to love ourselves better.

 

Despite the effects of the events that had happened, we still found little things that we can be grateful of, and we still found ways to keep on going. We've rediscovered ourselves, tried to learn new hobbies, open up new relationships, or rekindle old ones. 

While 2020 was definitely awful, we still have things that we can say that made us lucky and blessed. And while we are wishing and looking forward to a better new year, 2021 is a big reset button, wherein the moment the first of January sets upon us, it's a brand new chapter; it's a blank page that we are about to write on.

The struggles of 2020 will still be engraved within us, and we won't forget the lessons that we have learned as we dip our pens and write anew. Challenges will still be up ahead, but hopefully, with all the lessons we've learned from 2020, we'll be able to go through 2021, stronger and more equipped than before.