Two Thousand and Twenty

Nada Alnuzha

With the year nearing its end, many of us take this time to reflect on the last 365 days of our lives, achievements, setbacks and all. Yet, from its beginnings, this year was by no means like any other. 

News surrounding a foreign infectious virus seemed to be very distant and inconsequential to most parts of the world. As far as we were concerned, it resembled any other influenza outbreak that eventually died down and disappeared. Little did we know that it was the genesis of a global pandemic that would define and shape our year. What we thought to be insignificant news suddenly became the centre of our attention. The increasing number of Coronavirus cases kept us on our toes. Days of global lockdowns and quarantine turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and 2020 was dubbed as one of the strangest years we have encountered since the start of the 21st century.

The sudden change of normalcy did take a toll on most of us. Video meetings replaced morning commutes; grocery shopping was like entering a battlefield, your face mask as your armour and your gloves as your shield. Everyday was like the day before, and tomorrow already looked like today. A week stretched and seemed to last for a month, yet weekdays were becoming identical, that a week oddly enough shrank, much like a single day repeated several times. Was there an end to this absurdity? 

With all the dullness of the outside world, the monotony inside our homes proved to be our number one nemesis. When the dust had settled and the excitement of not having to go to school or work had gradually faded, there it was staring us down triumphantly, the humdrum of each day. Quotidian details seemed to lose their spark. Yet with all of this perplexity and uncertainty, there was something igniting inside of us that we were essentially unaware of.

The global pandemic forced a certain kind of lifestyle on us, and we found ourselves spending more time at home, surrounded by our families. We found ourselves valuing the daily routines that we often overlooked as being of little importance such as enjoying meals with our family. We took on new hobbies, cultivated new skills, learned to bake, got into gardening, began learning a new language, got into yoga, became self-proclaimed artists and the list goes on. 

There is something very fascinating about us humans when we find ourselves confronted by unfamiliar situations, when we become challenged and put to the test. We naturally seek methods of survival, utilising times of hardship and coming out the other side feeling much stronger and competent. As the world stood still, worlds shifted inside of us. Being intrigued by the level of change that the lockdown had on us, I asked many of my family members and friends, and most of them have acknowledged, to different degrees, a positive change within themselves during the past year. 

As social beings, being obligated to remain at home for months on end proved to be the biggest challenge for some. For many of us, this was an opportunity to get to know ourselves on a deeper level, come up with questions and seek out answers, realign our views and focus on self-development, overcome inner conflicts and discover our true, authentic selves. It was by no means something easy or comfortable, yet seeing the change in ourselves made it much more worthwhile and valued. Although 2020 is nearing its end, it isn’t the end of our quests to develop ourselves and cultivate healthy outlooks. Looking back at 2020, as ironic as it may sound, it was a year of positive change brought about by a global pandemic.