Year 2020 Life Lessons: From Gratitude to Minimalism, 7 Things We Learnt from the 'Worst Year Ever'

"The Year 2020 is the worst year ever!", " Ugh! I can't wait for this hell of a year to get over"... you may have heard people with immense privileges sitting at home with their fridge stocked say these lines. While ringing in the new year, none of us was aware of the shocking things 2020 had in store for us. This year literally took away lives of so many people because of the coronavirus pandemic BUT as the year comes to an end and we look back, what do we see? Take a moment and rewind. You will see fear, anxiety, sad faces, heart-breaking headlines, viral videos of old people separated, lost lives, lockdown, silence, episodes of mental breakdown and for many of us suicidal thoughts and loneliness.  BUT every situation brings you an opportunity to learn something, this nightmare of the year did too. We never imagined that we will ever witness a pandemic, but here we are and while our heart prays for the departed souls, we as survivors, learnt so much about life. In the real sense, millennials with their super fast-forward life, slowed down a little and learned what adulting means. Here are a few things we learned from 'the worst year ever-2020'

Many of Us Are More Privileged That We Think...

Even during a pandemic, your refrigerators were stacked, you had access to clean water, roofs over your heads, comfort, Wi-Fi & all other basic needs. Even if we didn't we had the ability to avail these things at the doorsteps. That says a lot.

... But We Only Realised Our Privileges NOW Because Life Slowed Down

We have what we need but we only realised it when our lives slowed down and we had time to be with ourselves during the lockdown. We were running and running, gathering things only to not enjoy them, BUT we finally did at the peace of our homes

Minimalism: We Don't Need Much To Survive

We think we need the ENTIRE WORLD, but we actually don't! During the lockdown, we only had our basics with, and look at us? We survived...HAPPILY! We didn't need a luxury spa and we did without the latest clothes.

Gratitude

We finally began to appreciate the milkman, the rickshaw wala, the hugs from friends, our vegetable vendors. Needless to mention, the coronavirus heroes like the doctors, policemen, cleaners, delivery people. Not just that, we also realised how important communication is, how we turned towards arts when the world was falling apart... so much to be thankful for, so much we took for granted.

Life Goes On

We lost so many people, we saw so many of our loved ones in pain, BUT the harsh reality is that life goes on! Our survival instincts are stronger than we think. We buckle up and move on.

Humanity Exists

We may complain about humans and how they will wreck Earth one day BUT look back at the year, for every negative piece of news, we had someone, somewhere restoring our faith in life. For every Covidiot, we had a nurse, a sanitation worker, risking their lives so that the rest of us can stay at home safely.

Social Media Is a Part of Our Life, Family, Health & Hope are The Essences

Your likes and followers may make you happy, BUT your family, pets and the real loved ones, make your life worth living. While during the pandemic when we couldn't physically come closer to each other, social media played a vital role, but all this time at hand, at our homes, we revised old memories with family and had a real conversation and that is what we live for.

We also learned the "new normal" and that work from home saves all of us a lot of time. As the year 2020 comes to an end, we cannot guarantee what 2021 has in store for us, BUT we can definitely say that we are better prepared than what we were in the year 2019.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 27, 2020 12:56 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).