The other day I saw a 2020 hindsight meme. It made me laugh, but of course, now I can’t find the exact meme.
Ugh. That is so 2020.
It got me thinking, though, which I guess is a good thing.
20/20
is a term used to describe visual acuity or sharpness. To me, that
means clarity. I actually thought 20/20 was defined as “perfect” vision,
but a quick Google search clarified that for me. I’m glad for that. We
should really ditch the pursuit for perfection anyway.
Some
might consider it a cliche, but it’s so true. At some point in our
lives, most of us have experienced it and literally said, “hindsight is
20/20.” I even wrote a blog post about it nine years ago.
It’s so easy to see life so clearly… after the fact.
When
we’re in the moment, everything seems muddled and confusing. We just go
on with our lives running on autopilot. We neglect prioritizing or even
knowing what is really important to us. It’s easy to get stuck
in the routines of our lives just because it takes too much effort to
change. Sometimes, we don’t even know anything needs to change.
We don’t always have the power of wisdom on our sides until we know the outcome.
It’s
highly likely that 2020 has been a rough year for you. The problems
showed up everywhere in many ways. Some of us had to close our
businesses and others had to collect unemployment. We may have lost
loved ones or had to worry about how our children’s social development
would be altered by this rare experience. If this hasn’t been a year of
challenge, difficulties, tragedy, or obstacles for you, then it has certainly been the strangest year on record. No one can dispute that.
In other words, it has been a crap year for many people.
We
can take things at face value. We can simply think, “this sucks, and I
have to grit my way through it,” or “2020 is going to be a memory I hope
to permanently erase.”
That’s fair.
Or, we can do what
humans are so great at doing. We can seek out other perspectives. I
mean, if 2020, the year, could stand for any principle, wouldn’t it make
sense that 2020 would be the year that gave us clarity?
The year 2020 has been the perfect vehicle for gaining clear vision.
Being
forced to lock down at home in early 2020 made us re-evaluate most
aspects of our lives. Many dentists (and I’m sure other professionals,)
appreciated the changes. We noticed how much better we were sleeping and
the massive decrease in stress and anxiety. We had more time to take
care of ourselves and exercise. Sure, some were forced to become home
school teachers, but we also got to spend more quality time with our
families. We also realized that we could be happier spending less money.
Suddenly, our previous financial needs weren’t so confining.
Then we started wondering if possibly there was a different way– a better way.
This
newfound clarity reminded us how important our emotional well-being,
family relationships, and work-life balance really are.
That’s
the thing about challenges. We don’t grow and learn from ease and
convenience the same way we grow from challenge and discomfort.
Maybe that’s the gift that 2020 can bring us: the clarity to prioritize what is truly important to us.
What
if this pandemic nonsense was all a sneaky plan from the universe to
get us to reset, to help us reconnect with what really matters to us?
What if that’s the irony? What if all of this struggle occurring in the
only time in history that will ever be the year 2020 is here to give us
20/20 vision?
We never know what our experiences will bring. But
one thing I do know is that surviving our challenges and gaining
hindsight always brings us more clarity and more resilience. That is exactly what 2020 can do for us.
As
we say goodbye to 2020, what is your clearest vision for what you want
in (and out of) life? What are you willing to change in order to
prioritize what is really important for you?
Maybe 2021 can be the year of achieving that vision.