My takeaway from 2020

A YEAR TO REMEMBER.

It’s just a few days, and 2020 will be behind us. A most extraordinary year. When we ran into it, I don’t think anyone had even a vague idea that three months into it and our lives, as we knew it, would come to a halt. A thriving world came to an abrupt standstill and we are still waiting for normalcy to return. No wonder, our most common refrain since March 2020 is, ‘when will life be back to old normal’.

I often get asked why I admire 2020 so much when it caused a life-altering crisis across the globe. I have always felt that in every adversity lies an opportunity. We only need to discover that. The amount of free time I had on my hands, thanks to the lockdown, was God sent. I loved the languid pace at which life was moving all those months. It seems a blessing in disguise when it gave me time and space where I stopped and smelled the roses around.

My kids were the happiest to have me around 24/07 and I would like to imagine myself as a more patient and wiser parent while dealing with the millennials. I finished books and watched classics that were mocking me for years for having left it in between. Caught up on sleep that I never had enough room for, and did write poetry, essays, and some worthy blogs. Remembered and attempted to reconnect long-forgotten connections from my youthful times to the recent past. Revisited memories from my personal almanac dairies, and albums.

But most of all, 2020 enlightened me to a new perspective of life to accept it in a larger scheme of things. I learned that man, even if he fancies himself as omnipotent, can never conquer nature.

2020 also taught me to slow down a bit, to hold my loved ones closer, to meditate and to pray a little longer, and never to take life for granted.

*What are your takeaways from 2020?*