20 Things I Learned in 2020

What I’m Taking With Me, and What I’m Leaving Behind

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The last year was hard on the entire world: devastating for too many, and daunting for us all. I was very lucky: while some people dear to me did contract COVID-19 and are suffering Long Covid symptoms, no one in my circle of family or friends lost their lives to the virus or any of the fallout from the pandemic.

I don’t take this for granted — the likelihood that it still can and probably will affect us in the most terrible way is still very high. The sense I have is one of disbelief and awe at being relatively unscathed so far, rather than one of celebration or relief.

But the pandemic did of course affect my business too, shutting things down and giving me lots of time to think, reflect, and hopefully grow. Here are the main lessons I learned over the past year of isolation, change, unknowing and un-knowing:

1. The dark night of the soul is a truly bottomless pit: During the Spring quarantine, I counted a total of 7 episodes of deep existential crisis. There was a lot to explore, confront and learn, and the experience was often one of great despair. By the time of our second lockdown in November, I was sure I had already gotten all of these crises out of my system, but nope: along came another one, and I found myself thinking: again…