A thread on 2020 so far...

Go back to December 2019.

The smartest, most capable, highest agency people on Earth with the most elaborate models, came up with a 2020 plan.

For their organizations, their people, their own selves.

And come 2020, everything went for a toss.

1.
It is not the most comprehensive smartest plan that wins.

It is the plan that has the agility to change to what it needs to be, that wins.

Most of us saw a dip in our income.
But we somehow managed.

We didn't face hunger, weren't without clothes, didn't have to walk hundreds of kms to reach home.

And yet,
We have the audacity to stand in front of the mirror and say, "I deserve to be where I am in life."

2.
We don't deserve to be where we are in life.

We are just lucky!
We were born to a family that took care of us, gave us love, food, shelter, an education.
Because of which we sit on privileges that people outside of our world won't experience even a second of their lives.

We started working from home, studying from home, staying 24hrs at our home.
We ran into the same people everyday.
And were with them everyday.

And that was pleasant for some relationships.
And not so much for some.

3.
The strength of our relationships best emerges during tough times.

The fragility of our relationships best emerges during tough times.

We went without help for an extended period of time.
No domestic help.
No errand help.
No repair help.
No one to clean the house, wash the utensils, the clothes, get the newspaper, bring the milk, get things fixed.

We did it on our own.
And realized how much they did for us.

4.
It is the little things that people do, that allows us to do the things we want to do.

So many stories of people changing their way of doing things, changing their perspective, changing their professions, their industries, their relationships, their lives.

So many stories of people being forced to do the same.

5.
We do not know how courageous we are until being courageous is the only choice we have.

We lived below our means.
Spent far lesser on travelling, eating out, buying random shit, wasting our money on stuff that we thought we needed all along.

And we realized, it isn't all that bad without it.
We can live without a lot of stuff we thought we needed in life.

6.
No one is going to stand at our funeral and exclaim, "he had the nicest, the most expensive couch I have seen. And boy, the phones he bought were just stunning!"

Life is not about stuff.

We started with our Zoom video turned on.
It was fun, early on.
To see the faces.
To engage.

And then slowly, we turned the video off.
And then muted ourselves.

We didn't want people to see what we were doing, when we were not doing what we were supposed to be doing.

7.
We should live our lives as if everybody can see us all the times.

- Seneca

Our schedules went haywire.
Sleep schedules went for a toss.
Netflix consumption increased.

A lot of us started to wait.
Wait for this to end, to get back to our schedules.
Wait for this to end, to be able to take charge of the future.
But today was already gone.

8.
The best way to predict the future is to look at your schedule today.

We saw nature come out in magnificent ways.
We saw nature heal.
We saw it flourish.

And we wondered, where was it all this while?
How come we never saw it?

Well because we never gave ourselves the space to.
We couldn't hear nature, because the noise outside was so loud.

9.
When we cancel the noise, we can hear even a whisper and think it is loud enough.

The year is slightly more than mid-way through, but its changed all of us in so many fundamental ways.
Whether by choice, or by force.

But it has!

10.
You change for 2 reasons -
Either you know enough that you want to
Or you know nothing and you have to.