#2020 Wrapped

With all the lives lost and livelihoods destroyed courtesy COVID, I think we can all agree that 2020 was a pretty shitty year at the very least. And strangely, it was a deeply spiritual one too. As we get ready to enter 2021, I realize that we have all grown to be very different people from what we were at the start of the year and the wee hours of last year’s NYE comes to mind. When we screamed “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” at the top of our lungs, we were so naïve, so blissfully unaware of what was going to hit us. We were so full of hope, so sure of 2020 being just the year for each one of us, bringing nothing but joy and satisfaction, in the form of academic excellence for some, success in love life for others, even the clearing of numerous backlogs for a select few :p. And even after a year filled with disappointment of RCBish proportions: all our set plans going haywire, our academic paths royally messed up, it is truly heart-warming to see the same hope slowly re-emerge as we near its culmination.

2020, despite being a big let-down, taught us many things. It taught us that sometimes it’s okay to hit the pause button on your life, it’s okay not to keep track of how much time you have wasted; that life is not all about being caught up with deadlines 24/7, enduring one hard week after another, just to be able to pay one’s bills and afford the next month’s Netflix. It taught us to adapt. Adapt to not being able to meet friends and being okay with it; to not be able to make 25 minutes long trips to college just to bunk all the lectures; to be in house arrest when your only wish for the last 3 birthdays has been going on one road trip with the boys. And that is human nature for you; it is unbelievably malleable and that's precisely why this lab-made virus can’t screw with us because we are already pretty freaking screwed to begin with :’)

On December 31st last year, I considered Charlie Puth to be the best vocalist around, hadn’t seen a single episode of The Office and hadn’t read the 16 books I read this year (yes of course I counted :p). I had not accompanied Santiago, the guileless shepherd from Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist' on his journey to fulfill his destiny; I had not seen an inimitable bond develop between Mariam and Laila in Khaled Hosseini's 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' and I had not witnessed Michael Corleone fall victim to circumstances and undergo an extraordinary transformation into the venerable Don Michael, bearing striking similarities to the Godfather's own journey to the top in Puzo's classic bestseller 'The Godfather'. And yet, in all my naivety, I still believed that I knew a lot. A LOT. I felt I was right about most of the things I opined on and my tastes in music and literature were impeccable. But just as 2020 ME can look back at 2019 MEs blunders and point out ghastly errors in judgement, 2021 ME will look back at 2020 MEs mistakes and notice similar flaws (including the contents of this blog :p). And that’s FINE, because that, ladies and gentlemen, is growth summed up. So you can cringe all you want at your weird past text-messages, crib about how it just doesn't sound like you anymore and and swear how you have finally attained the peak of maturity, but one day you’ll find all your current obsessions to be equally absurd and repulsive because as Brian Tracy puts it, “Perfection is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends”. Keep making mistakes,keep improving and keep striving to be better versions of yourselves, for there is no ‘right’ answer to your problems. A very happy new year to y'all in advance and I hope 2021 turns out to be significantly better <3