Lessons I learnt in 2020

What a year 2020 has been! And I think it's safe to say that for myself and for the world at large - things will never be the same again. And I don't mean that as a bad thing - from the minor inconveniences of living under lockdown, to the constant fear of catching the virus to having serious philosophical realignment about my self concept, the one thing that I have not stopped is learning from a dispassionate platform what the vagaries of life have to teach me. And it is for this very reason that I am confident that the lessons that I (the world) learnt in 2020 will hold me (us) in good stead for many years to come and I can't be more excited for the times to come where I (we) can put those lessons into practice - can't wait! Here I capture some of the most pertinent lessons that I won't be forgetting.

I think it's safe to say that for myself and for the world at large - things will never be the same again.

1. I don't really need that much

2020 redefined what it means to live and with working from home under lockdown many things naturally stopped happening, mostly in the "signalling" domain - no need for upgrading gadgets, buying new clothes. This was expected of course but with it also came the realization that indeed I don't really need a lot in order to have a good life, in fact, things can also become distractions and prevent us from focusing on the things that do matter. I'd always been a minimalist sort of guy and 2020 just confirmed to me that I can do with a lot less than I earlier thought possible.

2. Call your ego's bluff or It's not so bad on the other side

I believe that all of us have an ego, which I think defines what is "ideal" for us. This definition of ideal has been consciously or subconsciously fed into us since childhood and we have come to believe in it as the "true and ideal" version of ourselves, it becomes your identity, its who you ARE. The thing is, as long as you're in the ballpark with that version its easy to forget that you even have an ego, for it recedes into the background and you don't even know that it is there. It is during these times that we can make claims like "This success is not mine, I've only stood on the shoulders of so and so" or "What's money! What I want to do is good work and help those in need", and also truly believe that when the time comes we'll be able to follow through on our claims just as easily as we said them.

Until 2020 you could say that my ego was satisfied, I was making "progress" and getting recognized for it. But this year put me in situations where I got to know exactly how large my ego was as it fully emerged from its cave. When something attacks your ego it's almost a threat to your life itself, because indeed our ego is who we consider ourselves to be, who we are - as a manager, a parent, a child, someone who has a job, someone who goes to college, someone who is an Indian and so on. And when someone or something threatens to take that away from us we deal with it literally as a threat to our life.

But are we who we are? When facing challenges to my identity I first tried to fight it out and eliminate the threat. But when it became increasingly clear that the despite the fighting life will anyway take its own course, I turned back on my ego and asked whether what it was telling me - that if I lost my title, my position, my self concept then it would mean certain death - was it actually true?

Turns out no, when I really thought long, deep and logically about it: if I stopped being who I was until that point, I would still be around, though in a different role but nevertheless still alive, kicking and open to the possibility of growth. My ego of course would be "dead" i.e. I'd have to forget my previous self concept. But that is where opportunity exists as well, to become someone new, someone you wanted to be all along?

When I said "Fuck it, I'm going to do what I feel is the right thing to do" is when all possibility of growth emerged, when I left behind the shackles of who I "was" and thus what I could and could not do is when I started doing things that I KNEW were the right things to do. 

No matter what your ego will have you believe, you are not your ego

They say "follow your heart, forget what everyone else says", in my case I also had to forget what I was telling myself. Reality is really in our own mind, there is nothing called "objective" reality and often we are the first ones to hold ourselves back from becoming ourselves. All of this is getting a bit meta, but I hope you get what I am saying.

Our egos seem to be designed to make a big deal out of anything that threatens our identity, and I want to tell you that it is bluffing. All possibility of growth lies on the other side of the mental wall that our egos tell us should never to be breached. This year I realized that all of the times that I had breached that wall, all of the times that I had called out my ego's bluff, is when I had grown the most. Call out the bluff, you'll be fine.

3. The Abundance Mindset

Somewhere down the line I started thinking of everything as a zero sum game, and the more that went to someone else meant the lesser there was for me. Hence I become extremely competitive to the point of jealousy of other's achievements. 2020 happened to be the year where a confluence of factors led me to start helping people without any real expectation of reward or fear of "losing the race" - and it is amazing how things just work out for our when all you are trying to do is help others.

I've come to believe that karma is like planting little seeds - the fruit that you get from the tree will depend on the seeds you've been planting.

Through 2020 I have focused on doing good work and helping without expectation, on planting the right kinds of seeds, on having an abundance mindset. An abundance mindset refers to an enduring belief that there is plenty out there for everybody. When you truly believe that there is more than enough opportunity out there you become a different person, I became a different person. Much more willing to help, willing to share, willing to think beyond myself. And that had a host of cascading effects: people I rarely spoke to reached out to me with help, friends went above and beyond to help me, traffic to this blog started increasing and not to mention the massive improvement in my outlook on life and satisfaction with it.

It's a mind game really. One of my favorite quotes of all time is "In order to HAVE we must DO, but in order to DO we must first BE". When you start seeing abundance all around you then that is what you eventually get.

Difference between Abundance and Scarcity mindset by Megan Hallier

4. Capitalize on the silver linings

Shit happens, its always been happening, it will happen in the future as well, it will happen to you as well and there is nothing you can do about it. What you CAN DO is learn from it, easier said than done.

Victor Frankl, who probably had to deal with a lot more shit in the 3 years he spent in Nazi concentration camps than I will in my entire life, said that "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom".

In 2020 I actually made this happen by a change in mindset - being somewhat of a gamer, I started viewing any challenge in life as a level that I had to clear whose reward was a stronger me afterwards, and the only way to clear the level was to first upskill myself - I shifted my perspective from the "victim" to the "victor", from emotional to rational, instead of asking myself "why me?" I instead asked "this is an interesting puzzle, how do I solve it?".

When things are bad is when you are learning the most.

Did it make dealing with the challenges easier? Damn right it did. 

5. Everyone has tough times - not just you

I have often thought that life is against me somehow, its me who always had to work hard(er) to get what everyone else got easy, oftentimes having to deal with random unseen obstacles. And 2020 really turned it up to 11 for me, but so it did for the rest of the world too. And this was the difference, until 2020 I really had limited world view to compare with - folks from a similar background as myself - due to COVID I could now compare with literally the entire world and see how different people were coping. Sharing a similar predicament with the rest of the world gave me a view into how bad things can really get - millions of people losing jobs and struggling to feed their families,  students facing an uncertain future and family members grieving for those who had succumbed to the virus - at probably no fault of these people, what did they do wrong?

A macabre thing to think "at least I am not dead", but really something that gave me pause into thinking that it could get really bad even for me and that I was one of the luckiest ones around. Everyone goes through tough times, everyone you see around you has been through shit, life is not against you somehow, life just is. 

6. Things that really matter are often overlooked

I learnt in 2020 that the fact that I was able to worry about things like "when will I be promoted?" or "where should I invest my money?" was because I had very robust systems around me. Systems like the government that makes sure there is electricity, water, roads and safety where I live, like my telecom provider that connects me to the world and of course most importantly my family who look out for my well being - I literally would not be able to do without them. It is only on the strong foundation provided by these systems that I am able to even think about other things.

We think we're self sustained but the reality is that we're not, and that's not a bad thing as it allows us to do things which might be a better use of our time. But it is easy to sometimes forget the systems that support you are even there. In 2021 I made sure that I regularly recalled these systems with a sense of gratitude and appreciate them for all the ways they make my life easier.

7. Out of sight is out of mind

A professional lesson that working from home made me realize was that even though we're increasingly remotely connected, as humans we crave physical interaction and in a work context it means seeing colleagues in front of our eyes. Even though one might be working remotely churning out email after email - I don't really think that it has the same impact as seeing someone type away at their laptop in the same room as you are.

As a species we rely on heuristics and signalling, and one might be really dedicated to their work but at the same time they also have to "show" it. As per me seeing people on video calls and receiving emails from them is a weaker signal compared to chatting with them face to face. 2020 made apparent to me the importance of such signalling.

8. People matter - Not because you are weak, but because we are stronger together

I took much pride in being the lone wolf, and as life would have it I did pretty well for myself too, so I never paid any attention to people around me. I have now come to realize that this sort of mentality can only get one so far. Even before 2020 I had started feeling the need to rely on other's for help, but 2020 really hammered it into my mind.

Fact is, you will never be everything - you cannot know everything, you cannot do everything, you cannot be everything - it's physically and practically impossible. I knew this and so almost begrudgingly used to ask people for help. I think what 2020 changed in me was the emotion behind asking for help. The year presented to me multiple examples of how a honest bunch of people can come together to create something much more incredible than what any individual genius could do. This links with the Abundance Mindset - when you truly and honestly want to create something then people joining your cause and offering help is good, it's not a sign of your weakness but rather proof that people believe in you. Amazing how it took me so much time to realize this: together we are stronger.

9. Life is not supposed to be linear or Stop comparing!

Try to force life a little and you'll miss on some possibilities, fine as long as you're OK with the compromise. Try to force it too much and you'll be miserable as life sometimes takes its own course and you can't do much to change it.

I think perhaps the biggest win I have gained over myself is a dramatic reduction in my tendency to judge the quality of my life with how the lives of others were going. Maybe it was how 2020 was challenging or through the books I read or the people I spoke with or something else - but I really understood that everyone is really living their own story and no two lives are the same. Everyone goes through challenges as they go through happy times and any life that seems a straight line to success seems so only because you are looking from a distance.

I learnt that comparing with those "ahead" of you is useless not because it hampers your happiness in the moment but because there is nothing to compare in the first place. You can't compare apples and oranges.

10. Plan as you will, its action that counts

Take the immediate first steps - the larger complex plan will start to become simpler over time

This is maybe the most important lesson to me of 2020: However small it might be, take action.

I'll admit it, I am a planner and making (often elaborate) plans gives me the comfortable feeling of being in control. My problem is execution, the elaborate plans I make rarely see light of day much less consistent action. This is in part due to the feeling of control masquerading as a feeling of accomplishment and part because the elaborate plans I make end up scaring me with their enormity.

2020 forced me to take action, often without any planning and in this I understood that the chiche "the first step is the hardest" is actually true. Action builds momentum like a snowball rolling downhill. When I took the first step I was then able to logically derive the next step and then the next and then the next and so on. Over time this developed into a pretty good idea of how the entire plan is going to work and I gained the all important confidence to follow through on it.

Now I consciously and deliberately keep a very strong bias for massive action, constantly asking myself "what can I do now" - it is therein that any possibility of creation and growth lies.

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week - George Patton

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I don't know how 2021 is going to turn out for me or for the world, but whatever it is I hope it is a year where we all learn.