2020 VISION

Not to be dramatic or anything, but it's tempting to leave this page blank. Because what does one say about 2020?

Last year this time there were lots of jokes about 2020 vision. Then 2020 rolled around and we certainly saw things we'd never seen before. Not to minimise the loss and the struggles of so many people. But the unimaginable situation that was 2020 most certainly had its memorable moments.

Last year this time most of us had never heard of Zoom. Who'd have thought it would come to play such a vital role in our lives? Cats, dogs and spouses inadvertently crashed our meetings. Kids walked in at the perfect moment and said the perfect thing. Just one of those things came from the 3-year-old who walked into a Zoom meeting and announced: "Big boys don't care about nappies." (I won't say whose 3-year-old that was...)

The eye-opener that was 2020 gave us the experience of seeing people queuing for groceries. We saw sports matches played in empty stadiums. We saw deserted streets during rush hour. In fact, we could spend the holiday season making a very long list of the things we never thought we'd see.

We saw virtual gym training, virtual yoga, virtual classrooms and virtual weddings. There had been predictions that this would be the decade of virtual reality. I'm just not sure this is quite what they meant.

And then there was that moment when the eyewear profession thought there was a new product on the market. But no, it was just our president getting his COVID mask stuck over his eyes. He didn't exactly start a trend, but it was possibly the first time we saw that our president is human too.

Speaking of presidents, 2020 gave us an American election that... on second thought, let's not speak of presidents. Moving right along...

On another note, we got to see our colleagues in new ways. We saw their living rooms and bedrooms, and all the other rooms that had been converted into "home offices". As we appeared on Zoom meetings in our armchairs - and in clothes that veered dangerously close to being pyjamas - we saw a realness in each other we'd never seen before.

And while we saw others in new ways with fresh eyes, we got to see ourselves in new ways too. (Yip, this is the part where it gets really deep...). We saw different sides of ourselves to say the least. We were stretched and challenged, as things were asked of us that had never been asked before. We saw ourselves from new angles and will probably continue to do so.

And so (here comes the big punchline)... maybe that's what 2020 vision really means.

So, having said a few things about the year gone by, what does one say about 2021? What can we say except let's step into it with open hearts and open eyes. One thing we've learned is that we can't see into the future. So let's keep our eyes on what matters, which is usually what's right in front of us (and sometimes, trapped in lockdown with us).