A year ago, on 31st December 2019, I ended my year on a high note when I completed my trek to Tiger’s Nest (Paro, Bhutan). It was a trek that I did after a long time and it felt exhilarating to overcome a mental and physical challenge!
At the peak of this energy and momentum, I decided to plan more treks for 2020 as a challenge to myself and my fitness levels.
2020 turned out to be such a bummer.
Not just COVID but life in general.
At the beginning of the year, it felt like nothing was going the way I had planned. It was quite disheartening to have such a downhill start to 2020.
Thanks to COVID 19, my plans to go on another trek have been put on a pause till I feel comfortable venturing out on trips.
To sum it up, I felt quite deflated in the first quarter of 2020.
Now, as we come to the end of the year, I don’t feel as hopeless as I felt back then.
I am not undermining the disaster of a year this was for humanity, but I did survive the madness and have learnt quite a few lessons on the way.
Here are the 5 lessons that I learnt in 2020. Sharing them with a hope these might help someone as much as they helped me navigate through this year.
Lesson 1 – When you feel nothing is going your way, compel your brain to remind you of sweet happy memories from your life.
Everyone has at least one happy memory to go to.
Say,
A joke your friend cracked, or a treasure hunt you tracked.
Your cat/dog/snake did something cute or climbed down a chute.
A solo travel to a place unknown or surviving an extreme danger zone.
Rocking that green Saree or watching the night sky, beautiful and starry.
That Hip-Hop workshop you took, that foot and boot you shook.
That experiment with food, that turned out to be super good.
If nothing, I hope the above attempt at silly rhymes serves as your funny/happy memory. 😀
Remember these happy memories. They are your reminders that while right now things may not go your way, they eventually will. And you will find a way to build more of these happy memories.
Lesson 2 – Listen to your heart. ❤
Sounds cliché? Too filmy?
I know.
But trust me, it works!
Here’s how I know.
Our company announced Work from Home, on 15th March this year. I was supposed to travel back home on 21st March for my mum’s birthday.
Call it my instinct or my intuition – I made a split-second decision to fly home on the 15th itself. It was quite an uncharacteristic move for someone as indecisive as me.
A decision made in the blink of an eye. (Read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink for more insight into this.)
There were risks but, in my heart, I knew I had to travel.
I am so glad I did.
Who knew that a week later, the world was going to come to a standstill!
I could not imagine going through this ‘crapfest’ of a year, all alone. My family is my strongest support system, and I was lucky to be here with them during the lockdown 1.0, 2.0, ∞.∞…
I’m still here, with them. 😊
That was my first win over 2020.
I wanted many more of these positives and that’s when I learnt my next lesson.
Lesson 3: An idle mind is a devil’s workshop.
Another cliché, a lesson learnt in your childhood, that is a hundred percent true.
With humanity suffering all around you, it is quite natural to feel low, helpless, pessimistic.
But does that help solve the problems of the world?
NO!
So, while I was stuck at home, just like everyone else, I experimented with quite a few things.
- I cooked fancy food.
- I baked cakes and cookies.
- I re-attempted to learn my guitar… and continued to be awful at it. I’m not giving up just yet. 😊
- I practised my German language skills daily. “Ich kann jetzt ein bisschen Deutsch schreiben, sprechen und verstehen.” (I can now write, speak and understand a little bit of German)
- I gave a haircut to my sister. It turned out to be an epic disaster which compelled me to write a saga about it.
Oh, I wrote quite a bit too.
Even when you meditate, you keep your mind busy with positive vibes.
So, keep your mind busy.
While my ways to keep my mind busy helped me personally, yours might help save the world.
Who knows?
I’m glad I did all these things but, the one that I was most grateful for was my reading.
Lesson 4 – Focus on what you love to do when you feel there’s nothing more left to do*
( * – Provided your chosen activity does not send you into a dungeon of darkness and ill-health)
I had made a resolution to read 12 books in 2020 – a book per month.
Reading gives a quick charge to my grey cells. Without it, my brain feels dull, lethargic and at creativity level ‘zero’.
I love to read but, off late, I had lost my touch with it. I barely read any books over the last few years.
With lockdown and being stuck at home, I decided to push myself and increase my target to 20 books.
And thus, came into existence my #20in2020 reading challenge for myself.
Achieved quite a few positives within this positive. An “inception” of positives. (See! These are my grey cells at work)
- I was able to increase my reading speed.
- I came across some wonderful literary gems this year which had such a positive impact on me.
- I discovered this hidden universe called Bookstagram (book accounts on Instagram). Maybe, I was living under a rock to have missed out on such a huge community of avid readers.
- I felt educated about so many new genres, got introduced to classics I had not heard of before and a plethora of titles I had never known to have existed.
- I started my own Bookstagram page, started using Goodreads more effectively, learnt the reader lingo – DNF (Did Not Finish), TBR (To Be Read), QOTD (Question of the Day), etc.
I most definitely was living under a rock!!
And so, I read, read and read. Some months were all about books. Others were challenging to fit in some reading time owing to work and other commitments.
Well, I am happy and ecstatic to share that I have read a total of 41 books this year. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought that I could achieve this.
Yes, it is an achievement for me. Another win over 2020. A happy memory, should I need it later. 😊
An achievement not just in numbers but the richness of the books that my mind has consumed.
I feel positive, more optimistic about life in general.
I feel happy for all the humour and candour I have devoured.
I feel stronger about the topics that I care for.
I feel gratitude for being able to feel all of the above.
So,
While I was unable to achieve my trekking goal, I absolutely annihilated another one – Reading!
That brings me to my final lesson learnt in 2020.
Lesson 5: When things do go as per your plan, switch to Plan B.
Plan B = Be Positive
Things may not go your way. In fact, things may move in the exact opposite direction of that you desire.
At such times,
Don’t let these changes knock you down.
You don’t have to sprawl up immediately. Take your time.
Be positive. Be agile. Be open to the change – mentally, physically, emotionally.
It will help you to figure things out, your way.
It will help you to be resilient in the times of uncertainty and ambiguity like the ones we are living in, right now!
Easier said than done, you say?
I agree.
I am not a hundred percent free of uncertainties. But I was able to change things that were in my control.
If you don’t give it a try, you will never know.
It worked for me. It might just work for you, too.
All these lessons helped me emerge victorious against the adversities, 2020 threw at me.
I hope it helps you, too. 😊
On that note, ending 2020 on a podium of positivity and here’s wishing you a happy and bright 2021.
Cheers,
Priya
P.S: If you have made it till the end of the post (Kudos!) and would like to read the haircut disaster saga I mentioned earlier, you can read it here.
Perennial Pearls 
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