Giving thanks and offering gratitude to 2020

Unusual showing gratitude to a year knowing how it ended. To give thanks to something that challenged you so much it brought you to your wits’ end.

And yet, it gave me – gave us – a lot.

It ushered in a new way to think and live. Granted, we paid a price for it. But it’s a price we would have otherwise not willingly paid. A life we would not have willingly chosen. And why would we?

The challenges and losses aren’t easy to digest. We may not get over them for a while.

We often forget our human capacity to survive and even thrive in the most adverse situations. Our life force that doesn’t want to give up. To accept defeat. To claim that we were not good enough.

But we know we are. As the year ended, we realised that we made it through.

For a brief moment, we experienced life on the same terms as people in some other countries experience as their daily reality.

A very sobering (and humbling) thought. That we still have a choice. That there is an end in sight. There is hope.

2020 gave us a perspective we would not have chosen to have. Eyes that saw beyond our daily lives. It brought people together. To applaud, thank, and celebrate. It brought families together. A new way of life was rekindled.

It has always been my mantra. And 2020 really tested it.

And so I choose to give thanks to it.

For having shown me a different vision. To have opened my eyes to a different life. A different possibility.

To have challenged me enough to question my purpose.

To have woken me up from my mundane slumber. And forced me to dream.

To hope. To celebrate what I have.

2021 may be what it chooses to be.

But I too – we too – have a choice.

Because it’s what we do with it that counts.

Make it count.