And I think this is ok.
I don’t actually know what I learned in 2020
This is an attempt to clear my head on the last day of the year.
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I’m sure I’m not the only one who is currently in a reflective mode, trying to process, unpack, and understand all that was last year. I am sure that I am a better, stronger person now than I was 365 days ago, but I’m still at a loss for words about all the wonderful and horrible things that happened in my personal life and as a member of society.
I see a lot of headlines, intended to encourage everyone who has self-doubts about their accomplishments for the year. I’m appreciative and even in need to read those words as well, but internally I’m screaming and asking — if these were things we’ve practiced from the beginning maybe we don’t need them as much now?
If I were to summarize all the affirmative words I’ve heard and read these past few weeks it is that we are all enough. You are enough. I am enough. And for that, we should all be grateful.
That is all true, and if you need to re-read it over and over again, please do so until you believe it to be true. I did that until I believed it and it’s become second nature for me. But now that we’ve gotten that out of the way I want to formalize that my existential crisis also has leveled up.
Knowing that I am enough and being grateful for that, doesn’t do anything for the state of things in the world right now. Being enough and doing enough are two different concepts, and I beat myself up for not doing enough.
What does doing enough even mean?
I’ve actually accomplished so much more this year than I let my social media followers believe. This is an intentional practice I am doing, to train myself in not needing validation. I want to be able to celebrate my successes individually rather than in a group setting. I think it has done a lot for my self-worth, but the caveat is that apparently when you’re sitting alone evaluating your efforts it turns out you do need validation from others to reaffirm that you are doing enough.
I’m not going to actually list my accomplishments in this post to get reaffirmation. I know. I know, that sounds frustrating as a reader but this post is titled I’m not sure I learned anything so you should’ve known you’ll come to the end feeling frustrated.
What I want to leave you with is, do we really need to have a yearly evaluation of our successes and failures to look back? is today, the last day of the year that was assigned as the last day of the year centuries ago, really hold meaning in being that set day we do that? I personally give more weight to my reflections during my birthday, it just seems like a more natural day to celebrate a reflection. Maybe my birthday is too close to New Year’s and by this time, I’m just too tired of doing it all over again. I really don’t know if I learned anything super meaningful that I shouldn’t have already learned when I was younger.
My frustration is probably rooted in doing action about all of those intangible concepts that we all say we ‘learned’ this year. We learned that we have a lot to unlearn among other things. I learned that I know nothing, but isn’t that something?
I digress. This is going to turn into even more of a brain fart if I keep going, so maybe if you’re feeling the same sense of confusion, empowerment, strength, weakness, meaninglessness, and everything else I’ll leave you with this one question.
