20 Lessons We Learned in 2020

1. Washing your hands thoroughly means singing Happy Birthday twice.
2. People are weird and toilet paper is a commodity.
3. Who the introverts and extroverts are
4. How to work, learn, and celebrate via Zoom, and how to unmute
5. We think we crave “normal” but we really desire the familiar comfort of routine.
6. Everyone is essential even if they’re not an essential worker.
7. How to bake bread and grow tomatoes
8. Who we would actually choose to take to a deserted island
9. Baby Yoda’s real name is Grogu and that matters to a lot of people.
10. The power of the pivot
11. What our true priorities are, and that we still won’t tackle some of the projects we say we’d get to “if only we had time”
12. We can do with less, Amazon is (too) easy, and supporting local strengthens our communities.
13. We can do without trips to the grocery store for “just one ingredient.”
14. Even when the news strikes all bad, all the time, we can count on John Krasinski for Some Good News.
15. Self-care and maintaining mental health should be everyone’s daily practice.
16. Whether we rose to new heights on Pandemic Productivity (looking at you, TSwift) or got squashed by Pandemic Pressure, making it through this year with a working body and sound mind was an accomplishment unto itself.
17. Comfort is everything, and dress pants are overrated.
18. American individualism runs deep, democracy is resilient, and freedom for all is worth marching for.
19. Even difficult changes can produce positive results.
20. We have control over far less than we think we do.

One more, since we’re now in 2021: last year we watched as ordinary people stepped up to offer their talents and expertise, serving long, hard, sacrificial hours and risking their own health and well-being. We recognized the heroes in our midst, and we learned: we can be heroes.

Let’s be heroes.

Cover image by Monoar Rahman Rony from Pixabay