What 2020 Taught Me

This time last year, I was returning home to the U.S. from Australia after attending a friend’s wedding. I felt worldly expansive, wide-eyed, and more socially vibrant than ever.

Never before had I celebrated marriage or love in such a beautiful way. I hadn’t met such an open, supportive, interesting group of humans before (Aussies are just the best, okay?). Traveling alone taught me more about myself than any personality test or job prior. It was a buzzy time of reconsideration, inspiration, and excitement for the future.

But I had no idea the brief mentions of coronavirus in mainstream news would soon possess my entire world– our world– as I knew it.

Do I really need to say this?

A LOT has changed since March of 2020. Society changed. Priorities changed. Relationships changed. Politics changed. Entire infrastructures changed. Many things have been burnt away; some softening into ash, others refined to potential treasures. For better or worse, it seems that everyone has changed. I definitely have…

I prematurely ended important contracts. Walked out of a long-term relationship. Sold mostly all of my valuable possessions (including my car). Moved back in with family to an area I never thought I’d live again. I felt compelled to seriously question all I heard. Lost my source of income. Ran toward my scariest, longest-ignored fears. Began wholly & realistically confronting my mind, going to therapy, challenging every idea about what I thought I believed.

And yet, I somehow achieved more personal growth than ever before.

Honestly, I can hardly recognize the person I was a year ago. Or even six months ago. Or at this point, even three months ago.

With so much inward time for reflection mixed with a tunnel-vision focus toward personal “healing”, I’ve been marinating in several profound lessons.* Here is a glimpse at what I’ve learned through this wild 365-ish day timeframe.

* These aren’t lessons I’m interested in imposing on anyone who reads. Nor are they standpoints I’m declaring as newfound permanent convictions. These are simply glimpses from my experience and observations I’ve compiled into a tangible format for more sensible understanding.

There is No Time to Pretend.

Once upon a time, I thought it best to put on a better face for others’ sake.

When both future and health come into question, we stop to rethink what our real priorities are. For me, this year brought me to my knees in ways that remind me of what it’s like to feel them scraped up: shocked by impact and the sight of blood. Clumsy, childlike moments of dooming my own uncertainty and stuckness forced me to tend to wounds I hadn’t remembered receiving. Pretenses I spent years working to build up lost their desired value when I realized presenting myself in specific ways to the world wasn’t what I wanted at all.

What’s the point in pretending anymore? I’ve wasted so much time; I don’t have any more. I also have no more pity for learned helpless perspectives. There are no more resources to waste on whatever isn’t solving problems that need fixing, or fueling the urgency to enjoy the good in life.

Your Survival Looks Different Than Mine.

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Crisis pushes many of us into survival mode. Survival mode looks different to each of us. In survival mode we can become overly critical, anxious, and hyper-focused on obtaining our basic needs. With this narrowed motive it becomes easy to forget that the people living with us or our neighbors over there are also trying their best to survive.

My method of survival might look like retreating, organizing my living space and isolating from loved ones. Your methods of survival might look like expressing difficult emotions, prepping extra supplies and keeping in greater contact with loved ones. Maybe it’s any imaginable method beyond these examples.

We don’t have to look the same. We can still survive. We can accept each other’s situations for what they are. But it’s best not to fight or try to change each other lest we divide each other even further away in a time when connection is crucial.

All Things Die and Death is Always Happening.

This might come off as inappropriate or bleak in the context of a pandemic. But it’s a fact I’m willing to face.

Everything dies. Death is happening all around us at every moment so that life may persist. Whether or not we are comfortable enough to tolerate this fact is irrelevant to the reality that it happens and will keep happening forever.

From the calmest mundane death to the most horrifying torture– dying is the most real expectation we must come to terms with in life.

In the cushy Western world today it’s as if we’ve learned to fetishize immortality and develop resistance to dying. I’m not downplaying the grief that comes with sickness & death. I know loss… I probably ponder suffering and darkness more often than I experience bliss and levity.

But to be more comfortable with our phobia of dying than with the reality of death itself as an inevitable effect of life (pandemic or not) is a flaw that will continue to leave us all miserable. Especially, I believe, in times of such a large-scale fear of it.

Chaos Is a Door to Revision.

With catastrophe comes a loss of meaning to our bullshit. The distractions we utilize to pacify our discomforts get rattled away. We are forced to think about right now– today– maybe tomorrow– hopefully making it past the first of the month.

When chaos frames a situation, I must find my way not out, but through it– a necessary door. I can lock it and run away or push it open to take the next step forward.

Upon stepping through chaos I eventually catch my footing. Then I have to reflect on better or worse times from the past, while conjuring ideal potentials for the future. Creating new vision or revisiting and refining personal desires become important when chaos has shifted former foundations.

Revision simply means to correct or alter a previously existing edition of something. In this case, my lifestyle itself and the future I imagine moving toward is the revision required for this story. If it wasn’t for chaos, perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to recognize a need for more reliable resiliency.

The Most Humane Thing You Can Do for Someone is Allow Them to Choose.

There are more than two sides.
Nothing is black-and-white.
Nobody is pure good or pure evil.
Life is complex.

Humans are extremely complicated and enigmatic. We cannot fully understand our individual selves 100%, so the idea that you or I know what’s really up with world events of life’s underlying meanings is absolutely ludicrous. And hilarious!

With that in mind, this is what I’ve come to realize: it’s essential to let the other person choose for themselves. No matter how strange, dangerous, hurtful or out-there it might seem, I must let the other human be their own human. Let them make their own human decision, and honor the reality of what it is.

What they believe, think, say, and do is their responsibility. Not mine. Nor is it my job to try to change what they choose. The only thing I can choose is me. My choice. My response. My humanity.

Let others choose. Nobody likes feeling forced to be influenced by another’s ideology. (Plus, it doesn’t worrrrrrk!)

The System Is Broken as It’s Built Upon Many Dysfunctional Micro-Systems.

By “FUCK THE SYSTEM” don’t you really mean:

“fuck human nature and my personal incompetence and my family drama and my shithead friends and experiencing betrayal and witnessing greed and natural disaster and miscommunication and the economic inequality and the mysteries of good vs evil and the failures of all my ancestors that continue to affect me & my immediate world to this day”?

Something like that.

It’s a hell of a lot easier to win the fight against person micro-dysfunctions than it is to make myself sick over enormous systemic problems I’m incapable of touching, adjusting, or fixing.

Save your energy. Solve real problems that affect you and your loved ones. Be realistic. Come on, now. Saviors aren’t helpful they’re just annoying.

And lastly, not so much a realization, but a question that follows me now:

Do I WANT to Be Healthy Or Do I Only Want to Be Alive Enough to Not Have To Think About Improving My Life?

This is my biggest question, personally. But I’ll leave it here, as it is, just for the hell of it.