On Being Totally Wrong
By: Eleanor Hawksworth
Tags: White Privilege, 2020, Covid 19, BlackLivesMatter, Ignorance

On Being Totally Wrong

About a year ago, I asked friends, family and strangers how they thought the 2020s would change the world. None of us were correct. Eleanor Hawksworth Dec 2, 2020·4 min read

Ah, 2020. A year of utter disappointment for most people. Many plan to pretend it never happened. I plan for the opposite approach. It was perhaps the most eye-opening year I’ve experienced in regard to my goals, priveleges, and the degree in which life can change in an instant.

At the tail end of 2019, I was living in Seoul, South Korea. It had been a fortunate end to the decade. I’d gone from living a poor and boring existence as a confused uni graduate, to an English teacher making a decent income in a amazing city. I made enough disposable income to explore Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia. At work, I was surrounded by adorable kids who showered me with hand-written notes and drawings. The days were often long, but it was incredibly rewarding work. I discovered that I liked and excelled at creative jobs and took up a postgrad marketing course. Gone was the aimlessness — I was driven and determined to return to Australia in May 2020. I was ready to shove my foot in the door of any advertising agency that would have me. I was desperate to “catch up” to my friends who had established careers and purchased houses.

Upbeat, I asked my colleagues, friends and loved ones what they thought the following decade would bring. They shared a range of different perspectives. AI will put more people out of work. The housing bubble will burst again. Things will stay exactly the same. Brexit will finally happen and everything will be dandy (the opinion of my well-meaning, terrifically conservative grandmother). I posted all of their predictions here. None of them transpired.

The pandemic came. In March, Australia clamped shut all state and national borders, refusing to let anyone out. A cap was placed upon entrants. Only 4000 citizens or residents could fly home per week (as of December 2020, there are an estimated 100,000 Australians still overseas). Leaving was impossible, and going home was next to impossible. Given that I still had a work contract to finish, and almost a million people were losing their jobs back home, there was no choice but to stay put. My driving force had disappeared. After moping for a couple of days, I decided: “enough”. I was lucky to have a job, be healthy, and live in a country that reacted swiftly and effectively to combat the spread of coronavirus. Who cared if my opportunities had been taken away overnight?

My first mistake. In determination to count my blessings I refused to feel sad or angry at all. If I couldn’t chase after my career goals, I would improve in other ways. I started working out like crazy. I became machine-like in my actions. My days would start with intense exercise, then study, then 8 hours of working with rowdy kids, then more study. When restaurants and bars reopened, I refused to go to dinner with friends because I wanted to keep losing weight. I ate only oatmeal, chicken and broccoli and the scale plummeted. I was happy — because I’d been “successful” at something. It wasn’t until months later that I realised how unhappy and insecure I’d actually become.

Second mistake. At the start of the year I considered myself a rather open-minded person. Much like a cat having its head rubbed in its own wee, the Black Lives Matter movement shoved my brain into a smelly puddle of perspective. Newsflash, dingus—racism is not merely hate speech and blatant prejudice, but also silence and unwillingness to speak up against bigotry. At times I struggled with the unfortunate news that I was a lot more ignorant and complicit than once thought (turns out white fragility is a thing). Perhaps linked in with my low self worth and desire to be successful, the idea of being ignorant was not an easy pill to swallow. Eventually, I emerged out the other side, still confused but humbled and improved. There’s still a long way to go.

Yesterday, I woke up in a bed the size of my old apartment. 3 months after booking a ticket, I’d managed to pack up my life and fly back to Australia. Arriving at the hotel for my mandatory 14-day quarantine, I was presented with a huge room with a balcony and an ocean view. Unlike many other Aussies, it had not taken me dozens of flight cancellations and all my savings to get back home. Unlike many around the world, I had not lost people I love to a virus with no cure. And yet I was the one presented with a luxury hotel room overlooking the beach. Waves of gratitude, joy, luck, disgust and shame washed over me all at once. I decided to keep the gratitude, but not ignore the shame.

I’ve since taken my old post down. It wasn’t wrong or misguided to try to predict the future, but I’d rather focus on the lessons I’ve learned this year. Instead of wracking my brain about what lies ahead, I’ll be trying to greet 2021 with resilience, and an openness for whatever the present holds.