The Award For ‘The Teacher Of All The Years’ Goes To 2020
Don’t let your current situation blind you from learning indispensable lessons that 2020 is trying to teach.
Year 2020 which began with a bang, decorated as the banner year, is turning out to be completely different from the sentiment it was welcomed with. An year of unprecedented turn of events - an year of worst health crisis, human fatalities on massive scale, economic sluggishness impacting millions of lives; this year has brought sad news in many homes.
This year has come as a sudden brake in our otherwise normal ordinary lives. Ordinary lives we were so proud of and attached with. We had become so comfortable in our lives that we’d started to take our own existence for granted. Had it not been for this year, we would have continued living our life more or less of the same way.
This year has shackled our beliefs, shaken our existence and turned the world upside down, for us to understand deeper meaning of life. This year is more than what meets the eye and carries few latent messages for all of us.
1. Uncertainty is bedrock of life
The world we are living in now had become a comfortable place to be in until the beginning of 2020. People lived inside a bubble impervious to the uncertainties of life.
The uncertainty that the world is currently experiencing, had been unthought of. Uncertainty over next moment, over the news next time the phone rings, uncertainty over continuity of job, uncertainty of availability of meals, uncertainty of being with family separated by distance, uncertainty over everything.
Life has always been uncertain but mankind has always derided that fact. For humans, acknowledging uncertainty of life comes in as difficult as handling failure. Acknowledging uncertainty would mean losing control.
The bubble of certainty we were living in, curbed our freedom to think, choose, and perform; we constantly judged our ability to choose right over wrong, lived in a state of constant pressure and dilemma, wrecking our sanity resulting in soaring stress levels.
What we had been successful at keeping covered and hidden from ourselves, is a living truth now. Life is Uncertain.
Year 2020 has helped unveil the basic truth about life. Uncertainty.
Acceptance of truth, sets free the control freak inside each one of us. When nothing is certain, you stop questioning what is right and what is wrong, ready to experiment, unbothered by the results.
“When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.” - Ekhart Tolle
It is only due to the pause this year has provided, that many professionals are choosing new career paths even under unstable circumstances because now they know, uncertainty is the basic principle of life, and they are unperturbed by the results.
2. We are enough
Human kind is conditioned to find faults in everything around including themselves. Such conditioning has impacted ones self respect, self judgments, belittling self talk that ongoingly tells one that I/We are not enough.
Year 2020 has seen some relationships hit rock bottom, businesses thriving for survival, people being turned out of jobs and having sustenance issues, death of a family member, among other dreaded news.
But what misses the eye is we have been able to stand tall and survive the worst crisis we would have faced in our lifetime and this is good time to know that We Are Enough.
Our relationships are sailing through the worst of times, its time to know we are enough.
Business activity may have come to a standstill, but we have not run out of hope, its time to know we are enough.
We may not be able to be with family physically, but that has only unified us more, its time to know we are enough.
You could be broken, all battered, might be at the brink of giving up, but not yet. You’ve held on for so long, weathered the storm all this while, acknowledge yourself for who you’ve been and know you are enough.
This year has shown us - We are Enough. If we can get through this, we can get through anything.
3. Gratitude matters
This is the time when being grateful has been the source of strength to many. Gratitude is healing because in gratitude you pay attention to what you have than what you don’t have.
Gratitude brings attention to what we have rather than what is missing turning sadness into Joy.
Gratitude brings home the feeling of contentment and a sight to see beauty in everything.
Gratitude does not change the circumstance; rather, gratitude gives the power to accept the circumstance gracefully and an unmatched resilience to deal with it, thereby opening doors to happiness.
Practicing gratitude in such trying times brings such calm and peace to those practicing that they want to extend the practice to those who can benefit from it thereby spreading joy and contentment.
We can find grace in every moment, in every interaction and once we start feeling grateful for each moment encountered, life will become beautiful amidst the storm.
4. Every relationship counts
In our fast paced lives, we’d somewhere lost the human connect. The current slow down has made us seek grounding and look for our roots only to find them with people. At the end of the day all we need is a warm touch, a comforting voice, an ear to listen and sight of our loved ones.
With social distancing becoming a norm, a realization has dawned upon each one of us of how much we long for human touch, human voice, a longing to feel and hug someone.
Year 2020 has invoked our basic human need for another human and instilled us with the realization of how we all belong together.
(Here’s a piece i wrote all about Human Connection, should you be interested)
5. Our body is the ONLY vehicle we’ve got; Treasure it
Over the years, there are 2 things that are worrisome about the general fitness levels of people across the world-
- Fitness has rather become a fad and if you look at statistics, over 50% of new year resolutions revolve around losing weight or exercising more. As a result, people have become less and less sensitive to what their body actually needs.
- That being said, there are over 1.4 billion of people per WHO, who don’t exercise.
2020, an year that is host to worst ever health crisis, COVID-19, has revealed that health and fitness is not a fad but a way of being and a foundation to live a happy and joyful life.
COVID-19, besides being contagious, has successfully wrecked our minds with fear. Fear of survival of self. Fear of survival of loved ones. Living in a state of fear of survival is the worst. I trust, all of us want that the last thing on our minds. Further, when COVID-19 gets over, there may be another virus lurking around ready to challenge our survival yet again.
Physical and mental well-being is one of the most profound messages that 2020 has dent us with. Let us build such resilience and strength in our body, so that we become unstoppable in face of any such threats in future.
Let this year be a promise to look after our well-being on priority. A promise to not let any such virus challenge ours or any loved ones survival. A promise to nourish and nurture our bodies to experience the gift of life in the best possible way.
It’s time we recognize the incredible privilege of being alive by embracing fitness and make it a part of our everyday routine.
This year is unlike the banter every one had expected and may be unforgiving and grieving for some. But remember,
Sometimes it takes an overwhelming breakdown, to have an undeniable breakthrough.
This year has taught us what no other year could: keep faith, generate hope amidst dark clouds, take leap of trust in humans, and belief in self.
Year 2020 has given a new vision, a paradigm shift in perspective.
2020 is the year of new beginnings.
Thank you for reading.
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