2020: A Year of Adversity and Important Lessons

As the year 2020 draws to a close, I keep seeing and hearing people express the relief that they feel because this year is almost over.  It seems that pretty much everyone sees 2020 as a terrible year, one that deserves to end and one that they're going to be glad to move out of on January 1.  In many ways, I agree with this sentiment, especially when I consider the horrible toll that the year has taken in the form of Covid-related deaths.  So many people have been killed by this virus who would have had much more life ahead of them otherwise; so many people have lost loved ones who now won't be there to contribute to their lives in any way at all, except through memories.  And all of our lives have been turned upside-down to some extent or another, especially financially.  The toll has been horrific, and I understand why most of us want this year to end.

I won't be sad to see 2020 move into history.  But I know that it's not the year's "fault," per se--rather, it's simply that many things have happened in the same time span that we use to define a year.  And the first few months of 2021 promise to be worse--as far as the Coronavirus and the death toll from the pandemic are concerned--than 2020 was, so it's not like we're going to move into an immediate reprieve simply because we're going to start writing a different number in the spot where the year goes.  We're going to be facing very difficult challenges in the months ahead while we wait for enough vaccine to be produced to allow us to vaccinate virtually everyone (except for those who deny the vaccine, for whatever reason).

And though it can be difficult to see, the truth is that 2020 has given us some gifts of its own, lessons that we have learned over the last twelve months that we never would have learned had it not been for the pandemic.  We've learned about the fragility of our economic systems, as well as their strengths.  We've learned about our personal resilience and strategies for building it, as well as our personal weaknesses, and hopeful ways of compensating for those.  We've learned more about what loss is and how to cope with it, whether that be loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of certain freedoms and habits and routines, loss of norms, loss of a sense of security, or loss of control over our own lives and decisions.

But we have a choice:  Do we focus on the losses, or do we focus on what we've learned in our attempts to deal with those losses?  Will we look back on 2020 and remember only what has gone wrong, or will we look back with the realization that we've grown and developed as human beings because of the adversity that we've been forced to face?  I know that in my life, I've learned an awful lot this year that I probably never would have learned without the "help" of a pandemic.

For example, I've learned to be more comfortable in my isolation.  I've always been a bit of an introvert and I've always been comfortable being on my own, but the forced isolation at home this year has reinforced many of the thoughts and feelings that I've always had about the values of solitude.  These days, I don't really have the option of going out to be among people without putting myself at an unknown level of risk of contracting the virus, so I choose solitude over company, and the fact that my solitude makes the most sense right now helps me to enjoy it more and to make it more productive.

Both my wife and I have learned about the importance of putting personal safety above material realities.  When the school I was working at announced that they were going to open in August with all of the students in the classrooms, with no effort to follow any sort of hybrid model or online model, both of us knew that the risks of me keeping the job--and being exposed to 25-30 students every day in a small classroom with no windows that opened--were far too high for us, especially at my age.  So I looked for a job elsewhere and found one in a district where they were going to open with a hybrid model even though the number of cases in the area was extremely low.  We both were willing to risk our financial well-being in order to stay safe, and we found that taking that risk put us in a completely different life situation.  We now own a very comfortable house in a community that has very little traffic, a low population, and tons of wilderness all around to explore without having to drive for hours to find wilderness.

One lesson has been very difficult to learn--I've learned just how many people are willing to be selfish by not considering the safety of their fellow human beings at all, as they refuse to wear masks in public places even when the wearing of masks has been mandated and is basically law.  The danger is very obvious--with the number of asymptomatic people catching and spreading the virus, we can never be sure just who has it and who doesn't.  I may feel completely healthy and feel that I couldn't spread anything because I'm not sick, but the reality is that I can still spread the virus and cause others to be sick--or even die--no matter how healthy I feel.  This is why we wear masks, and the refusal to wear a mask is simply a slap in the face to everyone else with whom we come in contact.

I've learned a lot about patience, too.  There are times when I just want to stop wearing the mask, when I want to do something "normal" like go to a movie or restaurant and be relaxed in the company of others.  The inability to be completely relaxed, though, makes our situation much more difficult to be patient with--we see the term "fatigue" being used a lot these days.  "Compliance fatigue" and "moral fatigue" are just two of the terms that I've seen used, and they make complete sense.  When we get fatigued, it's easier to lose patience and make decisions that make little sense or that are even dangerous.  It's important to stay patient even while fatigued, and to make decisions that will help me to stay as safe and as healthy as possible during these difficult times.

On the positive side, I've seen a lot of people who are caring and kind and considerate who are keeping their good humor and who are doing their best to share their kindness with others during the pandemic.  I very much admire these people, and I hope to grow into a person who is like them one day.  They're willing and able to take risks and be kind to others in these difficult times.  As Fred Rogers told us his mother told him, "Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping."  It's easy to forget just how risky helping can be, and how difficult it may be for people to help others, yet there they are, taking the risks and helping all they can.

I've also watched others learning lessons that are very important, such as budgeting their money in new ways, making changes that are important for their safety and well-being, caring more for others when they might have been exposed to the virus, staying isolated when they would much rather be doing things with friends, etc., etc.  I know of people who work all day and then come home and undress in their garage, heading straight for the shower, not being willing to expose their families to even the possibility of contracting the virus that may be on their clothing.  Others have become extremely conscientious about washing their hands regularly or using hand sanitizer.  Many have learned the value of working remotely, and many companies have been willing to reconfigure their job expectations to allow people to work from home.

The bottom line, I think, is that there have been many important lessons embedded in this so-called "horrible" year.  It's our choice, though, whether we learn those lessons and make changes in our lives based on what we've learned, or simply complain about all the terrible things we've had to go through this year, not allowing this year's lessons a chance to make our lives deeper and richer.  The truth of the matter is that human beings tend to learn more from adversity than we do from prosperity, and we certainly have had bucketloads of adversity thrown our way this year.  Personally, while I'll be glad to see us move into a new year, I'll always be grateful for all of the lessons that 2020 has brought to me, and I hope that I'll be able to live up to those lessons by making my life fuller and richer because of the wonderful lessons that I've learned.

http://livinglifefully.com/adversity4.htm

Hope

'Tis the season of hope, in many ways.  The Christmas season shows us the hope that people are willing to have--hope that love can dominate our lives, that we can find peaceful methods to use and paths to walk on, that we can exist together in harmony in the spirit of unity.  Of course, most of these hopes have not come to fruition on a global scale, but we can reach them more easily on an individual level if we allow ourselves to follow those hopes and do what we can to make them come true.

Why is Christmas the season of hope?  Perhaps it's because a child from humble beginnings was able to teach so many people about the importance of their own lives, about the ways of love, about the true power that people have to affect their own lives by sharing love and compassion with one another.  After all, "love one another" was one of his greatest messages, and one of his most dominant.

I believe very strongly that if we're to have hope, it must be firmly grounded in love.  I may hope that my life will change if I work to make it change, but if I'm not sharing love in my life, will any changes be worthwhile?  If I hope for a better life and I get a higher-paying job, have my hopes come true if I'm also now dealing with unbearable amounts of stress and I'm no longer able to spend quality time with my family?  Sometimes we allow outside indicators like money tell us that our hopes have been realized, but it seems to me that if a hope comes true and lowers the quality of our lives, then it wasn't the best thing to hope for, after all.

So that gives us a second element of hope that's important, and it's the subject of a very common saying in English--"be careful of what you hope for" (aka, "be careful of what you wish for").

In my life, I've hoped for a lot of things.  Most of them haven't come to pass, like peace in our times, like better living conditions for people in this world (and in this country, even), like an end to the partisan bickering that keeps our elected officials from accomplishing positive things that they were elected to accomplish (infrastructure, anyone?).  In fact, many of these things have gotten worse, so my hopes have been dashed over and over.

And in my own rather powerless state as a teacher, my own contributions to bringing these hopes to fruition have been rather minimal--I've cast my votes, I've shared my opinions and thoughts, I've donated to what I've believed to be worthy causes--and it seems rather ineffective, given the success rate of my hopes.

But that said, my entire profession of teaching is based on hope, isn't it?  I teach certain things to 14-year-olds or 19-year-olds with the hope that those things will be relevant and useful to them--and the rest of the world--their while lives long.  I hope that what I teach may help them to craft wonderful lives out of the situations and gifts that they've been given.  I see very little effect of my teachings in the short term--my hope is that the long-term effects will be worthwhile, and that they'll affect my students and the other people in their lives, in positive ways.

We do need to distinguish between wishes and hopes, of course.  If I say in a casual way that I hope you have a good weekend, then I'm basically saying, "I wish you a nice weekend."  On the other hand, if you're going through difficult times and you're incredibly stressed out and you need some rest and rejuvenation, then I most definitely can hope that your weekend is a good one for you, in all ways.

Sometimes it's hard to be a hopeful person when we so many bad things going on in the world, so many people treating each other horridly.  Many of us seem to be content to hope that the bad things don't happen to us, and that the bad people don't come into our lives.  But we can also hope that these bad things stop happening to others, too, and with that hope we can practice spreading love--for it's a well-known truth that people who feel loved are also more likely to feel hope, for they have a reference point in their lives (the love) that tells them that their hopes aren't wasted time or effort.

What do you hope for?  Peace on earth?  Then practice peace with your neighbors and loved ones.  Fair treatment for all?  Then treat everyone fairly.  More opportunities for all?  Then help the young people in your life to develop skills and talents that will open the doors to more opportunities for them.  We can work towards what we hope for.  We can't always see the positive effects of our efforts because sometimes they take years to manifest themselves, but if we know that we're contributing to the love in this world, our efforts will be worthwhile whether we see our hopes coming closer to fruition or not.

Perhaps during this Christmas season, it would be nice to take a bit of time and reflect upon our own hopes--what do we hope, and why do we hope these things?  And we can see in the hopes of the season--especially the "peace on earth, goodwill towards all" part--just how important hope is to us, and just how nice it may be to be working our ways towards the hope that is a tremendous part of ourselves.  Let's let that hope out of the deep recesses where we store it and allow it to affect our words, our thoughts, and our actions.

Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion
for the possible.

William Sloan Coffin, Jr.

http://livinglifefully.com/hope.html

Be Good!

Always remember, we all have our own opinions and beliefs. We have different ways in dealing with life’s troubles and joys. To survive our differences without hurting each other is what goodness is all about.  -Dodinsky


Of course, 'tis the season to be good because you definitely want Santa Claus to leave you something, don't you?  This is the season when we barter goodness for toys and treats, when we admit that we're more willing to be good when we're promised rewards for our goodness than when our goodness is simply goodness, with no recognition and no rewards.

That's not a social critique, of course--rather, it's an observation of how we behave sometimes.  I like to recognize things like this because it helps me to consider just what it would mean to me if I were never to try to be good or do good simply for rewards--but still filled my life and acted in the spirit of good for the sake of goodness itself, with no thought at all about any sort of return.

And even more importantly, what would it mean if we were to redefine just what goodness is?  I like this particular definition of the word, for it speaks to our willingness to be civil to each other, to treat each other well no matter how different we may see the world and react to it.  We can do good by sharing gifts and giving things and helping others in material ways, of course, but what about accepting one another fully and unconditionally, as long as the other person isn't doing things that harm others (I'm never going to be accepting of any way of living that includes doing harm to others as a major element of itself).

How does my desire to spread goodness in the world help if I'm not quite sure what goodness is?  Not having a clear idea may cause me to miss many opportunities to spread and to be good, and it may cause me to mistakenly cause harm in certain situations.  If I think it's a good thing to criticize someone because I think they need to learn a certain lesson, I may cause harm when they see my criticism as something else.  Criticism, after all, is simply a message that someone else needs to change something that they're doing, an implication that what they're doing is wrong.  But perhaps it's not wrong at all, but just different.  After all, who am I to say what's right and what's wrong for anyone else?

I believe that's what Dodinsky is getting at with the words, "To survive our differences without hurting each other."  You are you and I am I.  We have our own ways of looking at the world, our own realities, and they may not often match up.  They don't have to match up.  When you tell me that you believe in something that I don't believe in, we don't have to become enemies just because of a disagreement.  I don't have to hurt you by criticizing you because I disagree with you.  We can make it through life being at odds with one another, as long as we're willing to respect our differences and each other.

(This can be very difficult when one person espouses racist or otherwise hate-filled beliefs.  Then we have to ask ourselves if maintaining a relationship would be worth it, or if we would be compromising our own integrity by accepting another person's hatred.  It's a very difficult question to face, and even more difficult to arrive at an acceptable conclusion.  As I get older, I get less tolerant of other people's intolerance, and I find that I don't want their hatred to be a part of my life, and I'm more than willing to break an acquaintanceship or friendship in order to maintain my own inner peace and integrity.)

I want to be good.  I want to spread goodness.  But I have to keep in mind that I can't do so if I'm trying to change others with my idea of "goodness."  It's important to allow for our differences if we're going to share what's truly good in our hearts.  No goodness can be spread where we harm others, and no amount of rationalization can change the fact that our perspective isn't necessarily the "right" one.  You be true to yourself, and I'll be true to myself, and somewhere there in the middle we'll find a beautiful field of grass and wildflowers where we can sit down and enjoy a beautiful time together, without harming each other even in the slightest.  And goodness is where this time will begin, and where it will end.

More thoughts and ideas on goodness