The year 2020 was—for the most part—a dumpster fire for everyone. However, despite all the crazy and unfortunate events that took place, I did learn two lessons that I am thankful for.
To start off, I learned how to recognize more of my privilege and how I should use it. From the Black Lives Matter protests to immunocompromised persons being very limited and alone to many people struggling financially in the pandemic, I started to recognize daily things I have or could do that others didn’t or couldn’t. I tried to use my privilege to support others, whether that be reposting diverse voices to be heard on social media or helping my grandparents with their groceries. Reevaluating your life and how you benefit in ways that others don’t in order to understand how you can help them is an important step I think everyone should take.
Secondly, I gained a better understanding of being patient with myself. There were quite a few goals I wanted to accomplish last year that didn’t happen—and that’s ok. The bottom line is: I strived in school and different areas of my life and that is still something. The world has slowed down, and because of that, so have we; you can’t expect yourself to do everything you need or want to do. Just make sure you don’t go down the rabbit hole of using the pandemic as an excuse for everything.
I’m sure there are more lessons you learned as well. Trying to get some perspective from 2020 moving forward to 2021 might be a good way to start the year—just don’t be too harsh on yourself.