Looking On The Bright Side of The Worst Year Ever

We made it!  We are at the end of the longest, most annoying year any of us has experienced.  I think it’s safe to say 2020 has been thoroughly exhausting – and in case you don’t agree, I recommend keeping your thoughts to yourself if you want to keep any of your friends.

And yet, at the risk of losing all of my friends, I’m also of the opinion that 2020 has brought some unexpected positives as well as all the obvious and occasionally overwhelming negatives.  As we finally put this endless year into the rearview mirror, it might be useful (and psychologically beneficial) to take a brief look at the good things this year has brought.

So here they are, the best parts of the worst year in living memory.  Time to smile, people!

We’ll Get To Hold 2020 Over Our Kids’ Heads!

You know how our grandparents always liked telling us that we didn’t know how good he had it because they had to walk to school uphill in the snow both ways?  Well they were lying about that – I mean eventually they had to go downhill, right? – but we won’t be lying when we say to our children in future years, “You think this is hard?!  Let me tell you about the pandemic of 2020…”  So cheer up!  We’re going to get to use this against our kids and grandkids for forever!!!!

We Got More Family Time

That may not be universally true, but it’s pretty close.  Most of us have spent more time with our family than we would have otherwise.  Sometimes we spent too much time with them, and they annoyed us – but on balance it seems that most of us have realized that we actually like the people we’ve chosen to live with and have enjoyed getting to develop stronger bonds with them than the requirements of pre-pandemic work and school allowed us to.  And sure, all of us are looking forward to things going back to the way they were, but I know for myself that spending more time with my two children this year than I would normally have is far more a positive than a negative.  Hopefully you agree.

We Have Been More Innovative Than Ever

In fact, I’d argue that 2020 has been the most innovative year in modern history.  Literally every business in every industry has spent a healthy amount of time this year thinking about how to improve and change the way it does business.  Some of the ideas we’ve come up with will disappear the second the pandemic does.  But some of them will quickly become industry standard.  I’m confident that there have been more ‘best practices’ developed this year than in the entire previous decade.  It may take a while for us to realize how good these new ideas are, but there’s no doubt that we will soon all start to see the benefits that come when we all sit down and think about how to make things better.

See?  It hasn’t been all bad.  Not to mention that everyone’s New Year’s Eve celebration this year is going to be intense, even if we’re doing them alone.  Who isn’t excited to see what 2021 brings?  I certainly am.

So I hope you’ve managed to find some silver linings in the gigantic thunderstorm that has been 2020.  Thanks for sticking with me through all this craziness.  Now let’s get ready to have an amazing 2021!  Or a least a normal one – I’d settle for that, too.