I’ll be honest, when I first saw the words “thankful” and “2020” in the same sentence, I, too, rolled my eyes. I suppose if you’re an actor in a brand new Netflix series, you’re probably thankful for the skyrocketing ratings you’ve received – half due to the quality of your show and half due to the fact we all finished every other Netflix series as soon as the first lockdown descended upon us. If you’re a clothing brand that sells any matching sweatsuits, you might be thankful that your product has been every girl’s uniform for the past 8 months. If you’re a young TikTok star living in an L.A. mansion, you’re thankful for the fame you could not have experienced anywhere else but the alternate universe we’ve all been launched into. But what about the rest of us?
After a lot of thought, I’ve decided that I think this year has taught our generation a good lesson. Whether we like it or not, we are the product of an age that grew up with technology – the children who snuck our iPod touches into our beds at night, and learned the hard way that Snapchat pictures do not disappear into thin air. We are used to one-day Amazon prime deliveries and pressing “next” on Netflix to start a new episode instead of waiting a week for it to premier on cable TV. We are used to relying on technology, we are accustomed to not waiting, to not having to practice patience.
Then 2020 hit, and while many of these actions continued, they seemed to lose their luster. We could no longer see our friends, some of us could no longer have a proper graduation ceremony, birthdays have passed in isolation, weddings have been cancelled, we’ve lost loved ones, time, and experiences. And what have we learned? Is this the cruel lesson we needed to force us to appreciate physical human connection, rather than our connection with each other via different forms of social media? Perhaps our generation needed this rude awakening, to remind us of what is beyond our screens by making us resent what we relied on the most. Maybe, this is exactly what we needed to question the way that we want to be spending our time.
This year has given us all an opportunity to sit with ourselves. Maybe for the first time since the rise of technology our generation has had to learn to slow down, to be patient, and to appreciate the things that we have around us. This pandemic has given us an opportunity to grow, to be faced with a common adversity, and to fight through it side by side. We were given the time to connect to one another, to reach out to old friends and spend time with our families. We’ve learned to appreciate the little things, and hopefully we won’t take the big things for granted again.
So, if you’re reading this, congratulations. This year is almost over and you’re still standing. To be honest, I think that is as much of an accomplishment as high ratings, astronomical sales, or any California home. Though our future still remains unknown, the New Year is a good time to practice gratitude by reflecting on the past and looking forward to the silver linings of the future.
This may sound odd, but I am thankful for all that I’ve endured this year. I am going to live to see the day that this has passed, and I’ll be able to look back at the hardest points of my life thus far, knowing that I’ve come out the other side. This year has taught me not to take anything for granted, to find joy in the little things, and has reminded me of what is really important. And that, that makes me thankful for 2020.