2020 Vision for habits worth keeping

2020 has been a tumultuous year in every sense of the word - physically, medically, procedurally, mentally and emotionally, and there is nothing better that we'd like to do than to vaccinate the hell out of this year before kicking it hard into the bins of history.

Hopefully, now that we are over the jagged edge of the pandemic, things will start settling into their new levels.... However, there has been a tectonic shift in the way we perceive life, so much so that things can never go back to the "old normal". Before the earth races on its last perihelion stretch to complete its journey around the sun to start off on another year, it is worth spending a few moments meditating on what is worth holding on to in the "new normal"

Most of us are designed to see the world in black and white and so miss out on the shades of grey. We like to talk about good vs bad, mine vs yours, heroes vs villains and so on…our conditioning over the years, combined with past experiences ensured that we ended up with expected behavior, so much so that we sometimes even had a problem spotting the wart on our nose. It is important then to acknowledge and take cognizance of some of the best practices that have held sway over this year, and to apply it to the new normal to make the best of 2021 and beyond.

 My 20/20 vision or near acute vision of understanding

 Return to basics

A microscopic infectious agent warred and took us back to basics! It was almost like hitting the “re-set” button as we all went back to the basics to fashion life all over again, and I must admit that it has made us more human and grateful for what we have

Less is more

Frugal living and making do with what was available on the shelves in the quick splash and dash visit to the supermarket was the mantra. We didn’t complain, we were actually fine with it. Choices boiled down more to what we needed than what we wanted. The word “essential” took on a different meaning

If fitness is expensive, try illness

This has probably been the biggest realisation of this year. Our primary focus this year was health, fitness, eating right and finding our mental equilibrium. Concentrated efforts were put in by all of us since March to increase immunity levels to be fighting fit to take on Covid 19 by eating right, taking multivitamin supplements or trying out fitness routines in the confines of our home

Breaking stereotyping roles at home

Gender impartiality when taking on the domestic workload makes for great headlines, but the pace of life or mindsets has seen to it that we haven’t really put into practice what we preach. Locked into our homes was when we started actually appreciating the unseen work done by the lady of the house to keep it running like a well synchronized and precise swiss watch. Sharing of domestic chores and doing them together has brought about increased empathy. I am hoping that this will continue as we get into 2021

A family that eats together, stays together

We all used to plan weekends and vacations as “stressful work schedules” and "long commutes" hardly left us with any "together times” with the family. The pandemic forced us into spending more time with the family, by sharing household chores, eating together, making time for indoor games or family time spent in front of a screen

Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize

Constant zoom/teams calls, working across different time zones, crazy deadlines, pivoting businesses plus household chores left all of us learning to prioritise things even more acutely. We finally learnt the difference between urgent and important.

Learning a skill

Suddenly we discovered we have more time in our hands as we learnt to prioritise. Either it was finally fulfilling a postponed desire to learn something new as we suddenly discovered an extra hour or two in the same 24 hours, or the looming threat of a job loss that forced many of us to enroll for courses online. Free or paid didn’t matter, but we were found going at it, and sometimes even competing with our peer group or family

Work from anywhere

Outcomes mattered more than the effort of physically being present in a work area. We have learnt to work from anywhere which calls for a different work culture and self -discipline

Sometimes the simplest of things emerge from a life-changing situation and can be the greatest learning if we learnt to adapt and adopt them. One sincerely hopes that we hold on to these simple, but hard-earned truths and don’t allow other distractions to make us forget all these learnings too soon