Lessons We Learned From 2020

by Nada Abdelkader

This past year was sure something, wasn’t it? Other than the life-altering pandemic, we’ve all been through some major changes and witnessed tons of personal as well as international transformation, all of which was admittedly hectic as hectic can be.

With that whirlwind of events nearly all behind us, though, we cannot ignore that we learned a lot of lessons from the year that had an equal amount of good times and bad times. The lessons, even if they seem like given or minimal things, are exceedingly important too and that’s the main reason we need to reflect on them one more time as the calendar switches from 2020 to 2021.

Lesson 1. PATIENCE IS TRULY A VIRTUE

This is an understatement and, surely, by now you know this well. But patience truly is the greatest gift you can give yourself, especially in times like the ones we’ve all been through. Since we had more than enough time to work on our patience and keep our irritation with a lot of things at bay, we’ve honestly learned how to cope with more situations than one. And with that adaptability and impatienceresistance, we’ll also manage to generally find ourselves calmer and more at ease in the future no matter the situations we’re put in.

Lesson 2. FAMILY IS PRICELESS

On some level, we’ve all known about this lesson, right? Family is important to every one of us and its importance has never faded. But even though we all love and appreciate our families, we can’t ignore that we’ve spent a great of deal of time with our families in the background or in the back of our minds rather than at the forefront. But with 2020 being what it was and the lockdown that had ensued, we’ve all made the best of it and started spending more and more time with our families to the point where we might have even rediscovered them. We really have zero complaints about that 2020-inspired life lesson!

Lesson 3. WE SHOULD NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED

‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ has been a longtime excuse for all of us, one that we used for anything and 40 December 2020 everything when we wanted to procrastinate doing something we wanted to do for whatever reason.

And that excuse is also one we’ll collectively stop using 2021 onwards because we’ve all seen how it turns out. Basically, it all comes down to us taking the chance to do anything for granted, not understanding that sometimes we need to simply

just do things and reach for the stars. Even if it doesn’t turn out in the way we hope, we’ll still come out victorious for just putting ourselves out there and seizing the moment.

Lesson 4. HEALTH IS WEALTH

We cannot ignore that a large reason why 2020 was the way it was is the fact that the world was going through a pandemic. And for that reason, we cannot ignore the fact that health is something truly priceless, even if we tend to overlook it most times.

From 2020, we learned that our health is something we need to invest in, both mentally and physically. We learned that we need to take care of ourselves and treat ourselves better than we do through keeping ourselves fit and wellnourished and, most importantly, happy.

Lesson 5. WE NEED TO GO WITH THE FLOW MORE

Life is just unpredictable sometimes. Despite all the plans we might end up making and all the expectations we have, life can simply change at a moment’s notice. And when that happens, as you expect, we will need to suck it up and learn how to go with the flow.

No one went with the flow more than they did in 2020, though, and because of that, we’ve all become just a tad more spontaneous, which is honestly not bad in the slightest. A life rigidly defined by plans is a life that’s admittedly highly structured but still rather dull.

Lesson 6. RELAXING IS NOT A LUXURY

As simple and light as this might seem, we all need to relax. Seriously relax, too, because after a full year of stress, it turned out we don’t quite know how to relax and not fully feel guilty about it. After this past year, though, we had to learn and we’re thankful we did.