Hindsight is 2020: Getting Back to Basics
We’re less than 24 hours away from 2021. So many people are ready to be rid of this year and I can’t say that I blame them—or claim not to be one of them. I’m certainly ready to keep moving forward. However, while I’m ready for the new year, I’m not sure I’m ready to forget 2020. Because even though so many terrible things have happened, I’ve grown a lot this year as a person.
Having to social distance forced me to spend a lot of time in my own head. For the first time in maybe forever, I didn’t have the day-to-day noise to escape into. Without the daily routine of getting up, worrying about getting to work on time, working 9+ hours a day, stressing over any and all the mistakes I made over the course of the day, speeding to make the next CrossFit class, and then hurrying home to shower, eat dinner, and work up the motivation to write, life slowed down a lot and it gave me the space I didn’t even know I needed to reflect.
And what I found was that I’d actually been neglecting my personal life—a lot. Everything I did was structured around my day job. And hey, I get it. I spend 40+ hours a week working, but when every thought and conversation makes you think about work and the only time you don’t think about it is your forty-five-minute, lung-burning workout that’s a big sign that it’s time to renovate your life.
See, somewhere along the way, I became so concerned with checking off Life’s milestone boxes (e.g., graduating college, getting a job that pays me a livable wage, moving out of my parents’ house, etc.), that I was defining myself and building my entire identity around my job. Yeah, I was yelling on Twitter about writing and moving forward on projects, but that wasn’t paying my bills. And as a result, I started to put less effort into carving out time to play and putting more time and effort into what was helping me put food in my fridge.
I was literally living to work and I felt myself growing into the kind of adult I never wanted to become.
So, I did what every self-starting, ambitious twenty-something would do: I bought Ori and the Blind Forest for Xbox One. I played it every night for two weeks straight. It was beautiful. It’s also available on Steam and there’s a sequel that I plan to get after I’m through with The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt. I would 10/10 recommend!
What did I gain from playing Ori and the Blind Forest? From a professional standpoint, nothing. From a personal standpoint, everything. For two weeks, I wasn’t constantly checking my company’s social feeds or battling trolls. I wasn’t pushing to knock out an extra support guide or brainstorming our next email campaign. I also wasn’t writing and stressing myself out about whether or not what I was writing was good enough to be published. For fourteen days, I simply enjoyed Ori’s story, solved puzzles, ran the gauntlet to escape a pissed off momma bird, and saved the forest.
Happiness isn’t created by big things, rather it is the sum of a number of little things. And while I’m not saying work isn’t important, what 2020 made me realize is that I’m at my best when I give myself permission to play and enjoy the little things.
Even when this pandemic is over the world will remain imperfect. The only way I’m going to be able to make it better is if I continue do better. And in order to do better, I need to be at my best. I need to feel like I am enough. When life is all work and little pay, things get super stale and stressful and easily blown out of perspective.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because that’s what the world needs, is people who have come alive. ”
So while I can’t say that I’m going to miss 2020 or even claim that it was a successful year, I also won’t say that it was a waste. Because for the first time a long time, I’m proud to be beating to my own drum again. I’m unapologetically taking time to waste a moment and play. It’s a practice I’m looking to continue into the new year and the years to come.
