8 Things I Learnt in 2020

As we are approaching the end of 2020, should think this is a good time to reflect what have been done in the year and what's good to carry forward. Below are 8 things I have learnt from life and business in the year of 2020 - a year with so many ups and downs, we saw death, we saw life, we saw the rise and fall of many remarkable entities, we leant and experienced just so much. So thank you and goodbye 2020, welcome 2021.

Make it yours if you find it helpful and happy reading :)

8 Things I leant in 2020:

1. Less is more:

People often find themselves struggle over things because they always want more while life can be much better if we know how to want less. Less but better is a way to go, where to apply:

Want to improve your work: remove unnecessary things, focus on high priorities items.

Want to improve your sleep: remove things that distract you from your sleep - social media blue light in bed room everyone

Want to improve your diet: remove unhealthy and bad things you eat

Want to improve your relationship: remove toxic behaviors that can bring harm to the table.

We often think that new course, new product, new fitness program, new dating method or new exercise will help us to improve ourselves. Instead a potential way to do better is looking to substract.

2. Anything half done or half known, is neither done nor known at all.

I saw many people with laziness of mind, go through both pleasure and business with equal inattention, neither enjoying one or doing the other. Thinking themselves as men of pleasure because they are blended with those who do and consider themselves as businessman as they have business to do, though they never do it properly. In both cases, results often come out as bad or even worst.

So whatever you do, do it with your heart, do it with purpose - thoroughly not superficially. Anything that half done is not done at all and will therefore not worth anything much but a mere waste of time.

In addition, nothing is trivial if done rightly. There is hardly any place or company where you can't learn knowledge or experience. Almost everyone has something good to learn from and even in dire situation we often can find some valuable lessons to learn and benefit from. Seek and you shall find but do it with your heart, purpose and with good manner then even most troublesome matter will open to a great deal of valuable things in life. You have to fight the dragon if you want the gold, fight it with carelessly then the only thing you will get is your corpse.

3. Do good things for the purpose of doing good

More than often, courteous and friendly conduct may meet with a return of unworthy and ungrateful return - it should be expected. The lack of gratitude and similar courtesy from the receiver cannot destroy nor should it affect the willingness to do good from the giver, as the saying goes "any giving with expectation of return is a form of business, it is more of a transaction than an actual giving."

As we keep scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness around us, some of them will inevitably fall on good ground and grow up into benevolence in the minds of others. Fruit of happiness will blossom when it hits the spring.

"A kindly action will always fix itself on the heart of the truly thoughtful and polite man." - Cecil B. Hartley

4. Reading is life most valuable gift we ever have:

Next to being a man of talent, a well read man is the most agreeable in society. No investment of money or time is so profitable as that spending in good, useful books, and reading.

We enjoy communion with the mind, not often with the person of the writer. The humblest man will therefore often surround himself by the wisest and best spirits of past and present ages. No one can be solitary when he possesses a book, a friend that will instruct him in moments of leisure or of necessity - turn open the leaves and the fountain at once gives forth its streams.

5. Education as entertainment is overrated

The danger of education as entertainment is that it will educate people that learning should be a form of entertainment, and that anything worth learning can take form of entertainment, and ought to be so.

Even though it may be true that in some aspects, entertainment is making something easier to learn and probably more interactive when properly incorporated but so much of everything and it will turn bad. Obstacles, challenges and difficulties are still needed and could be important prerequisites to reach mastery - a destination of everyone's learning journey.

6. On life:

A life without risks is surely alluring; its sweet lullaby of safety and comfort has lulled many a man into the trap of mediocrity and apathy. But a man who never dares greatly fails to see that he has taken the greatest risk of all: the risk that he will never progress, never refine his soul, never amount to anything worthwhile.

7. On manner:

The first objective of politeness is to put all at their ease, true politeness therefore never embarrasses any one. Rudeness should be treated with perfect politeness and polished manner, doing so will shame those who have been uncivil to us by their rudeness, and, by doing so we will more readily make them blush by our courtesy, than if we met their rudeness by ill manners on our own part.

While a favor may be doubled in value, by a frankly courteous manner of granting it, a refusal will lose half its bitterness if our manner shows polite regret at our inability to oblige him who asks the favor at our hand.

"Kindness and compassion are the strengths, don’t let anyone confuse us. Also, We don’t defeat hate with hate, we defeat hate with love at scale." - GaryVee

8. On life part 2:

"Live for some purpose in the world. Act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, but are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are while they live, like one pebble lying unobserved amongst a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? whose wants supplied? whose miseries have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life, to re-admit them to existence? or what face would greet them back again to our world with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good, gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit, nor seeing when good cometh—a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub." - J. A. James

Thank you for being a part of my Linkedin Network and Happy New Year 2021, wishing you everyone health, happiness and success in the coming year and always.