Lessons from 2020

 In one of my posts towards the end of the last year, I had noted that the following six months would be my longest uninterrupted stint in Bristol. With what happened this year, sixteen months would have been a more accurate prediction. At this time last year, I was girding myself to finish my PhD and find a job in my department. Neither came to pass, but last year's aims and ambitions seem irrelevant now. The world has changed and is changing, and one's ambitions will also change. The best one can do in these tumultuous times is keep an open mind. For all the horrible things that happened this year, it did teach me a lot. It expanded the realm of what I thought was possible. I felt and vulnerable to Covid many times, but I also found hidden reserves of strength and fortitude that we never knew existed. It pushed me to do so many things that I wouldn't have contemplated in normal times. From jogging in the dead of winter to entertaining the possibility that it is possible to let go off some aspects of my personality that I have always struggled with. It taught me that one can find moments of peace and even joy when the world is burning, and one shouldn't feel guilty about it. That different people respond very differently to crises, and while one should refrain from judging them, one should also not feel obliged to make allowances for their behaviour at the cost of one's own well-being. It taught me that it is possible to make a conscious decision to disengage from a prickly person or situation without harbouring animosity. That it is perfectly acceptable to let sleeping dogs lie and even put some dogs to sleep. Lastly, I feel like I have become even more self-sufficient and self-contained over the year, but its too early to say for sure.