What Has Been Gained in a Year of Loss

 This blog entry was inspired by a story I heard on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

2020 has been a year of loss.  Millions of people have lost their jobs.  Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives.  The country seems to have lost the ability to make a smooth transition of government after a fair election.  IFor jobs and democracy, I am hoping those losses are temporary. 

My personal losses haven’t been nearly as bad as others, but I’ve felt them.  At the beginning of the pandemic I lost trip to Japan, something I have been doing and look forward to every year for the past several years.  I had tickets to see a game at the Chiba Lotte Marine Stadium, completing my quest to see games in all of the professional baseball parks in Japan.  This year was to include a quick side trip to South Korea, my first to that country to start a quest to see games in all the ballparks there.  The loss was so keen that I felt the need to tweet about what I would have been doing on each day of the trip back in April had I been able to go.

More importantly, I lost hope for the future.  The lockdowns due to the virus made me believe that any opportunity to get closer to a life I would want to have was lost.  I imagined myself coming out of the pandemic with nothing left to do but wait until my life ended.  Pretty bleak.

In the story on NPR, they reached out to people to find out, in a year with so much loss, what they had gained.  I listened to the people interviewed talk about the things they now have in their lives.  

A young man with a debilitating disease moving to another state and regaining the ability to laugh and dance again because of the doctor he found there.

A woman who had poetry come back into her life after attending a zoom class with other poets put on by a local community center.

A man getting the determination to finally quit smoking.

A woman who is a self-described atheist deciding to go to chaplaincy school and finding her calling after losing her previous job.  

After listing to the story, I decided to take some time and see what I have gained this year.  Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. 

For one thing, I’m better off financially.  With no where to go, I’ve been setting aside all the extra money I can, and increased my 401k contribution by a few percentage points.  And without having to drive into the office every day, I’ve saved a lot of money on gas.  It’s directly a result of the conditions created by the virus, but it’s a plus.  

Better than that, I’ve returned to writing.  At the end of 2019 I was frustrated and depressed about the state of my writing.  I didn’t see it going anywhere.  I felt like I was wasting my time.  But then, about the time of the first lockdown, I decided to try again.  I decided to at least finish the two novels I had been working on before.  I’ve now completed the outline to finish a rough draft for my science fiction novel, and I’m reading my fantasy novel’s rough draft, taking notes to create a revision plan for it.  And I’m writing my blog again, working to update it (about) every week.  

Deeper than that, I gained a determination to change my outlook.  It was another NPR story about optimism that made me want to make the change.  It made me realize that my pessimism was an expression of a feeling of helplessness, rather than being firmly seated in a more pragmatic outlook on life.  I decided I didn’t want to be or feel helpless any more.  

So now, every morning when I write in my journal, I end the entry with a three line affirmation, inspired by the group Optimists International: 

“I will be strong so that nothing will disturb my Pease of Mind.  I will be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.  I will take every opportunity to make progress (in my life).”  

I don’t always succeed in being stronger than fear, or preventing things from disturbing my peace of mind.  But every morning I remind myself that this is how I want to be, and I write down the ways I’ll try to embody this outlook in my coming day.  

As the Japanese say, 七転び八起き. Nana korobi hachi oki. “Fall down seven times, get up eight.”  

If I’ve gained an increased ability to keep getting back up after taking a fall, then I’ve received something very good from this year after all.