2020 was bad. Is there really anything we can learn from it?
There probably won’t be another year like 2020 in our lifetimes. It is a year for the history books, and not in a good way. Decades from now, historians will see 2020 as a blank year, the lost year, where civilisation took a pause and the world stopped working as we knew it.
Make no mistake about it, it’s been a bad, bad year for most of us. The pandemic has cost lives, jobs, homes and relationships. Basketball legend Kobe Bryant died in a freak helicopter accident. The Australian bushfires paralysed entire territories Down Under. Racism reared its deadly head when George Floyd died at police hands.
But out of the ashes some good may still come. Here’s three takeaways:
1. Accepting that we are not always in control
The human race is a proud one. And there’s plenty of reason to be. We landed on the Moon, we learnt to fly faster than the speed of sound, we are breaking new ground all the time! Years ago, we even tried to build the tallest tower in the world to reach the heavens. The Tower of Babel, it was called – you might want to find out more about it.
But 2020 sent it all crashing down like the Tower of Babel. The human race was defeated by an unseen virus. For all our millennia of medical expertise and advancements in science, we were, for the first time in a very, very long time, completely dumbfounded. It’s a new experience for most of us. Admit it, when you first heard of the Wuhan virus, as it was known then, you figured it’d pass in a week. “Just another new strain, we’ll surely overcome it in days, if not a month – tops.” A year on, and here we are, still grappling with the novel coronavirus.
This year, we’ve had to accept that even in the most highly developed societies and superpower nations, we have lost control. It’s a deeply discomforting experience. Maybe it makes you realise that what we find our security in – our material comforts, our jobs, our studies, our healthcare system, our governments – can really disappear overnight. What then, would you be anchored in as a source of refuge?
2. When the world grinds to a halt
It is in our nature to take things for granted. We assume that when we awake the next day, things will be the same. That our families will always be around us to take care of us, that we will hang out with our friends in school, and our sporting idols will be on television playing that all-important title-deciding game.
The sudden death of basketball legend Kobe Bryant in January at age 42 was – for lack of a better descriptor – simply crazy. This was a man immortalised in the annals of the National Basketball Association, a one-man game-winning machine who redefined the sport. A fit, successful superstar idolised by millions around the world. One fateful helicopter ride later, he was gone from the world, leaving behind his wife and children. For fans all over, this was not supposed to happen, but it did.
Similarly, the idea of business as usual was seriously tested in the face of the pandemic. Major sporting events like the Olympics and Wimbledon were taken off the calendar. The world economy ground to a halt as trading suffered seriously in the absence of smooth supply chains. Singapore, for so long used to existential struggles, found itself seriously vulnerable for the first time this century. Where were we to get our eggs?
The world ground to a halt, and we realised we were taking things for granted. Sadly, when the pandemic is over and things revert to normal, we will once again believe that everything works as usual, just because it should. 2020 showed clearly that there is no such guarantee.
3. Let’s be thankful
If 2020 doesn’t make you truly appreciate what you have around you, let’s face it, no other year will. People have lost loved ones to a mystery illness, helpless as they struggled to breathe in their final days, and unable to mourn them or remember them with a full-scale funeral. It may have been you. It could have been you.
Lives too have been lost to unjust “justice” systems, where systemic racial abuse occurs nationwide. The “Black Lives Matter” movement was a defining call to action that highlighted that many in the world live in constant fear of those who are supposed to be protecting them. It may have been you. It could have been you.
Worldwide, populations have elected new governments this year. For many countries, it is a deeply divisive process where the stakes are more than just new policies and taxes. It is a matter of life and death and whether you are allowed to continue living in the country you call home and be with the family you love. Voters went to the polling booth in the hope of a peaceful country not torn asunder by the politics of race and division. It may have been you. It could have been you.
One thing 2020 has shown is that no one is invulnerable, whether you are in the prime of youth, a wealthy individual of privilege, or a citizen in an advanced economy. That’s scary.
But something else 2020 shows also is that the human spirit is stronger than we think. It is in the resilience of medical workers pulling insanely long shifts; it is in the resolve of political leaders leveraging all the international goodwill they have to ensure the best for citizens; it is in the sense of justice of those standing up against the treatment of George Floyd. And these are blessings we should be grateful for this year.
