What did the year 2020 teach me?
By: Muskaan Narang
Tags: Love Yourself, Self Help, Self Healing, Mental Health, Love

Well, this year was hard, for me and for the world collectively.

In January 2020, India recorded its first case of Covid-19 and in March 2020, we went on our first lockdown. Although the process of locking India down was on and off, just like any other decision that the government takes, nothing was ever the same. Since I work in an IT company, I was fortunate enough to work from the comfort of my home. I was living in a 1 bedroom studio apartment in Bangalore, a hip and bustling city, when the first lockdown happened. After living there alone for 6 months till September, I moved to Delhi for the latter half of the year to spend it with my family. I am writing this entry so that I can remember this year, for the things that I learnt and not for the things we lost. (Although, no one is forgetting 2020 anytime soon, that’s for sure.)

Another reason that I wanted to get this out for the world to read is in the hopes of helping someone else. I hope each and everyone of us write this year off as a lesson in our respective journeys and leave all the bitter memories behind. Although, I am aware that nothing is going to change anytime soon in the next year and we have already put so much pressure on the coming year that if 2021 was a person, it would already have performance anxiety.

But all we can do is hope for the better right? So here it goes, the lessons I learnt in 2020 in words.

1. We are all in this together.

However hard this year was, it did bring the world together in its weird way. Every human on this earth was feeling the same way at the same time. We were all fighting for our safety, taking care of our elders and kept wishing that everything gets better soon. It reminded us that we are all cut out from the same cloth and these geographical boundaries are a hoax. We all became people from Pangaea once again. We learnt the importance of asking each other “How are you and how is your family doing?”. Our clients, our house help or the person who delivers our groceries, they all had something in common now. They all became humans to us first and we knew that each and everyone is facing a hard time. This year gave us the quality which is hard to come by, Empathy.

2. Accepting where you are in life, goes a long way.

Acceptance of who I am and where I am at present (both geographically and in the pathway of my life) is something that I have struggled with a lot. I have lived in 4 cities in the last 4 years, so my living situation and personal life changed quite a lot very frequently. It was not in my inherent nature to adapt to changing life situations easily. Its partially because I am an emotional person and I get attached to people and places, that’s common right?

So, this year gave me a chance to live alone voluntarily for 6 months where I could spend some time with myself and my thoughts whenever I wanted to (This is of course after working for my 9–5 job, cooking and eating my meals and cleaning my apartment). And I realized that I am finally okay with who I am, where I am in my life and this feeling is quite fulfilling if you ask me. It is important to accept where you are first to clearly see where you eventually want to be.

3. Helping others helps you.

Well, this is something that is a common knowledge for most people and yet for some, it comes as a surprise. Since I am a Protagonist personality type, this feels natural to me. The warm feeling you get in your heart when you see someone smile at you, knowing that you have made that person feel better on bad day, that’s unmatchable. You will feel a blessing that will come out of their hearts and touch you.

Of course, you don’t want to drown into the White Knight syndrome, which is what happens when you lose yourself helping others. This year I finally learnt how to help others while simultaneously helping yourself stay afloat.

4. Kindness towards your own self is essential.

Being positive for your own self is a very hard thing to do, I know. It’s easy to give another person pep talks and be all supportive, but when it comes down to being positive for ourselves, we fail miserably. Don’t we? This is something new that I tried and I wanted to share it with you. I was dealing with some hard situations in my life both personally and professionally. So instead of being negative and dwelling on the problems, I started focusing on the positive outcomes that I envisioned for myself and my close ones. I won’t say it solved all my problems, but it for sure gave me the strength to sail through them. My bad days were not so bad anymore, because I knew tomorrow will be better. And my better days? I was able to enjoy these beautiful ones to the fullest, as they deserved to be lived. And I realized that being kind to myself helps me more than being hard on myself. This is something I wish to carry on for the years to come.

If you have reached this part of the blog, I want to thank you for giving it a read and being a part of my journey. I wish the year 2021 is filled with more better days for you and gives you strength to sail through the bad ones with a smile. :)