These 6 Lessons I learned in 2020

Finally, it's over! The year which the majority of us hated is finally coming to an end. Can we be more thankful? Perhaps, or perhaps not. At the end of every hardship, we are left with plenty of lessons, and for 2020 I cannot stress enough.

It has been a year of so many hardships for me, yet I survived and managed to be better then I used to be; adaptability is within "us" the human spirits and minds. Without adaptability, none of us would have tended to be where we are.

This year has taught me if anything else is how unpredictable life is. We do not know what's going to happen next. Just Imagine: I was tired of going through the same traffic each day, and now I miss going to the office. In March 2020, when the first case of COVID-19 emerged in Pakistan, we had no clue that everything will change at the end of this year.

Like I said, with hardships' comes ease and comfort. The same couldn't be right for me in 2020. Hence, the following are the lessons I learned this year:

1 - Isolation and anxiety:

It's real. I had no idea what isolation is and what anxiety is. I cannot be more thankful for my social life. I am surrounded by loved ones, people who care for me, people I care for. I have excellent people in my life, those I can trust through thick and thin.

Yet, this year I finally felt what it's like to be alone. To have dinner alone; To drive alone; To watch movies alone; To play FIFA 2020 alone. Feeling of helplessness; the ups and downs, and stress and excitement, and being alone had a direct toll on my mental health, and it has finally made me realized for the people who are less fortunate than I am.

I have made it a habit to call my friends, keep in touch with people I love and who are dear to me. Every noon, when I have my lunch break, I make an effort to call and check up on my friends, which has helped me, quite a lot.

The same goes for everyone. Those who we know are less social or have fewer friends, let's be their friends and share some pain as we finally near the end of COVID-19.

2 - Family is everything :

Similar to the earlier point: family is indeed everything! They are the ones who will stand for you, overlook your issues or dark sides, and ensure you get back on your knees the next morning and perform better.

People who are fortunate enough to have their families around them need to understand this. The life I was living did not involve much family time. Now, things have changed, and I cannot thank you enough.

Life's better with friends and even better with family members.

3 - Have two skills:

Have you heard this one before?

If you have one career/job, you are one step away from poverty.

Well, 2020 made it quite practical. I know so many people who worked so hard to be where they were in life, and then BOOM! 2020 happens, and unfortunately, overnight, they lost their businesses and jobs, simply because it wasn't sustainable anymore.

This is a big lesson which every one of us needs to understand. Can we live our life the way we used to, or we can change something about it? I have learned it's high time to do so.

With so many online courses teaching emerging skills from Digital marketing to Data science, and that too for free. All you need is will-power, 1-hour each day, and a laptop with a Wi-Fi connection. It's high time we realize we cannot survive in this changing tech-run world in the way we are used to.

4 - Health is wealth:

I cannot stress this one enough. You are what you eat. If you eat healthily, it's more likely your body had better immunity, and that was enough to help you survive in 2020. I remember when the first wave of COVID-19 was at its peak, many of us were worried if we have strong immunity or not.

We rushed towards eating more healthy and consuming Calcium tablets each day. Imagine if we had adapted towards a more fresh and healthy diet a year before 2020, we wouldn't have to worry about our immunity.

But that's not enough. Health is everything. It is why we can leave our bed for work, why we can go for a jog, and so on.

Good health is everything!

5 - Working from home isn't as bad as thought to be:

Before COVID-19, I was working part-time as a freelance writer. I knew some of the basics as to how to make the best of working from home. Little did I know, working from home might become the trait of the twenty-first century.

But the good news is, it isn't as bad. Use my technique as follows:

Step 1: Get your juices flowing! After waking up, go for a day, have a cold shower, dress up well, and wear perfume. Trust me, and this will make your body and mind feel fresh.

Step 2: Use the Pomodoro technique: after 25 minutes of intense work, give yourself a 5-minute break in which you stretch a little or scroll through social media.

Step 3: Have a lunch break, and now and then go for a drive-thru and eat your lunch in a park. This will help you connect with your surroundings and freshen up your mind after looking at the environment.

Step 4: During your lunch break, call a friend! Any friend, but call someone. This will help you socialize a bit.

Step 5: Make sure you go for an evening walk. You need to have some rest and connect with your surroundings!

6 - Routines are everything:

I will speak the truth: I did not have a routine, but my work life gave me a performance. After COVID-19, it was gone, and I felt it quite profound.

If you wake 5-mins prior before going to their office, trust me, we are the same. But COVID-19 has taught us and life cannot work this way. You have to have some routine; otherwise, you will fall off the cliff very soon.

Routines help us stay connected with our goals, it helps us connect with our bodies and mind; it allows us to ensure we are living the life we were meant to, and most important of all it helps to ensure we do not procrastinate.

Conclusion:

Life's short. We cannot predict anything, as life is indeed unpredictable. We can make small steps and actions that will help redefine the course of our activities and ultimately our life.

This is because in life, at the end of it, its all about making small actions and adapting to our immediate context.