The positives of 2020

I have been thinking a lot about 2020. Lots of influencers and people have been quick to write off 2020 as a rubbish year where nothing happened. Despite how difficult it has been for everybody a lot of valuable lessons can be learn from this year.

The way our society functions and the way we operate everyday was flipped on its head. I went from being on the go constantly and working six days a week to suddenly being confined to my house, still being expected to do college work but being put on furlough from my part-time sales job. I found I used keeping busy as a way to become complacent, I was able to dismiss stuff by saying I didn't have the time, I couldn't fully consider lots of my personality due to always thinking about the next activity or task I had to do.

Personally in lockdown I found this time to think very exposing, I am prone to overthinking but instead of having social events to distract myself I found myself considering my behaviours that I wouldn't have had time to before. This lead to me taking a lot of personality tests and criticising the way I communicate, which has made me a better person. Having spoken to my friends and family, a lot of them have expressed that their personality has changed after lockdown, and that's very interesting as I felt a similar change in myself. I have become a lot more self aware, I find my own company more bearable than I used to and I understand more of what I need to be happy. As an extrovert I found it difficult to truly connect with people not in person but what I think is astounding about human nature is our desire to interact and connect with others. In 2020 Zoom blew up as our inherent desire to talk to others in our circle needed a safer way that could happen from our own homes. That surely is a beautiful thing. Just because our lives have stopped functioning doesn't mean we can write off 2020, the more we learn about ourselfs will benefit us. I think 2020 has exposed more failings of our current government and economy that going on as normal ever would have. 2020 caused a lot of grief, heart break, and sadness and we are allowed to react to this in whatever way. I believe it is important to acknowledge how deeply COVID has affected our lives and how devastating it has been. However it is also important to not write off the lessons we have learnt from this really shit year. As some say "every cloud has a silver lining" and I have found 2020's silver lining to be what I learnt about myself, and the deeper connections I made to others this year.