2020 Mid Year Reflections

Introduction

Let me start this post by saying, what a year of 2020 and can you believe it is only half way through? Global Pandemic, Oil Crisis, China Trade War, George Floyd, US Election, Global Recession Worries and many more still yet to come.

Year 2020 is definitely something that will be in my memory for quite some time and there are much I want to talk about. A single post of blog or even a series of blogs may not be enough, however I just decided to document some of my top reflections so far and may be when things are moving along there will be additional that I want to add or change.

This post will be more or less for myself for record purpose. The content may be dry and boring compared to rest of the posts in my happy travel blog.

There Is Always Hope

The current pandemic is probably the worst global crisis I have personally experienced so far and the last time I felt a bit like this (not even close, to be honest) would be the day when Boston locked down the whole city right after Boston Marathon Bomb. To be fair, now thinking back, this pandemic also reminds me how fortunate I am that I really had a pretty good and peaceful life where there is no major challenges or struggles. I am greatly thankful about this because sometimes it is so easy to forgot how privileged I am already.

I personally experienced this pandemic almost three times in three waves since it got spread from Asia to Europe and eventually to North America where each continent I have families and friends that I deeply care about. Despite the tremendous differences in culture, race and nationalities, what I see in common among the places and people during this crisis is that there is always hope, no matter what.

When I first saw the news in China where they first locked down the city Wuhan, just like anyone else, I entered the panic mode right away thinking that the city (if not the country) is doomed and all my families and friends in China are in danger. However, everything turned out to be not as bad as I thought and now it is almost contained even.

Same things happened in the Europe and North America, when I saw the news about Italy & Spain and hearing Trump's comment about drinking disinfectant and injecting UV light inside people's body, my immediate reaction is that it could be the end. However both continents turned out to be fine by now too.

My get away so far is that hope and faith are really important during any crisis, because eventually any challenges and difficulties are gonna be over and you can either went through it fearfully or optimistically which I will prefer the latter whenever possible. 

Big Trends Are Unstoppable

Globalization, Environmental Changes, Financial Crisis and Racial Problems those so called big boring topics seem so far away from me until I personally experienced all those myself through short period of time.

Recently I was at World Press Photo Exhibition 2020 in Amsterdam (which displayed the top photos of last year) and just as I walked passed by all the selected award winning photos, I realized that all the things that we are seeing today are just barely the reflections of the hidden big trends that have been around the society for long and those are not stoppable.

World Press Photo of the Year: Straight Voice © Yasuyoshi Chiba, Japan, Agence France-Presse. The photo shows a young man, illuminated by mobile phones, reciting protest poems in darkened Khartoum (Sudan).

Often time there are other things that are happening around us that distract us into thinking that certain big trends are no longer important or irrelevant, what I learned for now is that it is very important to see the big picture. Human tendency is lazy and it is not that we do not know about the importance of digitization or remote working, but until the last minute, we are not going to do it. Another take away for myself is that often time we have to allow us to forget about the moment, news, tweets for a moment and pay some attention to the big trends. I found meditation a really good method of achieving that recently.

Conclusion

I spent my birthday two months ago during the peak time of the pandemic and I just made one of the biggest birthday wish ever in my life so far. I really wish the world will be healed soon and people can learn the lessons through the pain. Meanwhile I do see more positives throughout this experience and may most people feel the same eventually as well. 

Stay Social Distance and Stay Faithful!