The Year You Survived

Paul Cantor
Curious
Published in
3 min readDec 9, 2020

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The end of the year is here. I know you, overachiever that you are. Pandemic and all, you’re taking stock of it. In a world where everyone somehow still seems to be crushing it, did you do enough?

The truth is, you did. If you are alive reading this right now, you did enough. This was a crazy year, and you survived. Maybe you social distanced, maybe you didn’t, maybe you worked from home or maybe you had to go out there and be amongst the people. Maybe you didn’t even work at all. Maybe you’ve just been locked in your house/apartment since March. Maybe you are living in your parent’s basement, home-schooling yourself. Maybe you spent your stimulus check on fireworks. Maybe you’ve just been smoking and playing video games this whole time.

Whatever you did, you survived, you got through it, and now you’re here. You hit the streets after George Floyd was killed, you protested and marched, you stood up for the things you believed in. You went to bat for your co-workers, your fellow students, friends and people you never even met before. You saw an injustice, centuries in the making, and did what you could to correct it.

The election was coming, and that was big. Democracy was on the ballot. You mailed in your vote or you showed up at the polls, braving long lines and risking your health so you could have your voice heard. Trump sued to overturn the election, but there was nothing he could do. You wanted change and you got it.

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Paul Cantor
Curious

Wrote for the New York Times, New York Magazine, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Vice, Fader, Vibe, XXL, MTV News, many other places.