In 2020 “There Are 5 Things I Learned From My Experiences”
By: Mustafa Kurt
Tags: Empathy, This Is Us, Life Lessons, Experience, Portfolio

Like most of us at the end of the year, I think this is what happened in 2020. There have always been unexpected new ups and downs in my life. Frankly, this one year seemed like five years to me. At least that’s how I feel. The different and most important thing I learned this year from the books I read throughout the year is that people grow, develop, break their emotional and physical resistances; He understood most at times when he felt stress and pain like this year. Me and my family; This year, we felt much more intensely what it means to live, togetherness, and being a family. I saw that many things that seemed indispensable before, could actually breathe and survive even if not in my life. This situation, although a little compulsory, allowed me to enjoy life in different ways.

Before the definition of social distance came into my life, remote calls seemed very unnecessary to me. Thinking that somehow I can meet at the weekend, somehow we can call and meet in a few days and see each other face to face; I had loved ones that I did not call and did not meet. But now It has made it felt that the meeting is as important as the physical interview through the screens. How I felt that planning and living planned is very important when I was constrained at home like a fish out of water in early 2020.

In my morning walks, which is another change that 2020 has brought into my life and which I have made into a routine, I thought today; What did I learn most important in 2020? As I have written in many of my previous articles, I am actually writing this blog to myself and the reader is reading. I’m wondering what you have learned from this year, too. If you can write a comment below the post, we would appreciate it if you help me and those who read this post.

I wrote recently about what I should do to enter 2021. Let’s go through the 5 things that I thought about in my walk this morning and learned from 2020 this year;

Photo by Farrel Nobel on Unsplash

1. I have to diversify my portfolio.

I learned how important it is to make sure I don’t put all my eggs in one basket. Whether I am a company employee or one of the lucky few who have not been affected by this process, the most important thing I have learned from the books and blog posts I read this year, but above all, from the lives around me, is that people have different sources of income. Didn’t we all fear losing our jobs and being without an income? I understand that “losing your job” and “fear of losing your job” are very, very different things, but I cannot say that I know because I did not experience the first one. I am grateful to God for this and pray that we will all be saved from this situation. For this reason, this year, I focused on voice-over work that I have done with an amateur spirit in my past and which has about 13 years of professional experience. I opened an account on the VoiceBros website. I reached out to my old friends in agencies and revived my additional sources of income.

2. I have to have a “break this glass in an emergency” strategy.

Like all of us, I was very surprised at the beginning of this epidemic. In previous years, if these were to happen in 2020, I would say you are crazy to that person. But we all know what we went through. What we’ve gone through this year is very, very different for all of us, and experiences that none of us have had before. I realized that we should all have contingency plans for unexpected situations like this. When it comes to an emergency, the earthquake is still the first thing that comes to my mind like all of us. For this reason, my wife updated our earthquake bag and took its place at the door of our house. What would we do if a meteorite hit Earth in our next emergency? (Hahaha, did someone tell me you’re crazy?)

3. I have to let myself go.

I have learned that I have reinforced with Daniel Kahneman’s Fast and Slow Thinking book, which I am reading these days, how easily we are unwittingly guided and open to wrong thoughts and that I have to change the way of thinking. I saw how much I thought unnecessarily about issues that I had no control over. I realized that even if it was difficult, I had to allocate my energy to issues that I had control over. I continue to work on this path. It’s hard to achieve but at least I’m trying.

4. Stop Notifications.

My busiest moments this year were when I read books, blogs, listened to or followed podcats that made me think about new and different perspectives. Another issue I noticed while doing this is that I was following a lot of unnecessary accounts. In a blog post on Medium, I read how the block button can change my life and immediately applied it. I also continue to practice. I unfollowed the accounts that I followed unnecessarily from my Twitter and Instagram accounts and did not need to be in my stream. I read this medium article the other day. Let’s see if I can apply it.

Gregory, a neighbor of Kate and Toby from This is Us

5. I should not judge others for myself.

After our daughter sleeps, we watch the TV series This is Us with my wife. A scene the other day brought to light a thought that had been in my mind for a long time. It hit me like a whim once again that I should not judge people without knowing and learning their own stories. I can’t tell you how I got nervous and mange in the first place with the character of Gregory, played by Timothy Omundson, who appeared in the season 4 episode of the series. Then, when Gregory explains why it is, I cannot explain how my whole body is on fire. (The author wanted to write that he actually had a few drops of tears flowing from his eye, but he could not feed his pride.) I always have to show mercy to each other; I felt that I should never forget that each of us carries unique and heavy burdens and that I should not judge anyone without learning his story.