2020 in the Rearview

2020 – we’ve almost made it to the finish line, friends! What has this year offered you and yours? Has it been a year of loss? Healthy change? Whatever the past 12 months have been for us, individually, we have all been adapting-on-the-fly.

One year, myriad challenges

2020. This was a Hollywood blockbuster thriller/adventure movie of a year. Seeing this year in the rearview mirror is welcome relief for many Canadians. Others, despite health-economic-isolation upheaval, express gratitude for the year’s gifts.

We share in the experience of restricted freedoms; we are widely diverse in how we manage (and interpret) those limitations. All of us find our economics altered; each of us has felt that in unique ways. Some of us have fallen ill; others have been in support roles to all kinds of disrupted care and keeping around health issues.

On a global scale, we are facing into questions of security, purpose, and loneliness. We are afraid and creative; at peace and so angry.

Who will I be in 2020?

Most certainly, this year has reminded us of how little over which we have control. For you that may be an issue of human rights. Perhaps you’ve taken a political or ideological or theological position. Maybe you’ve bunkered-down safely into your own view, feeling informed and sure of your own perspective. Alternatively, you are opting to trust the science and systems of the society that has served you well to date. You may find yourself at odds with the people you love as opinions and fears and hopes all scrabble for footing.

Through it all, there is only one thing that we can truly control: who will I be in this moment? On this day? As I enter a new year, how will I live-love-give-help-withdraw-pause?

I need to keep it simple

With a world on the wobble, I find the need to consistently simplify my own Way of Being. What is my intention in this moment? This interaction? What about my intention for the month? For myself, I keep that simple: I wish to cooperate with Goodness — for all. Goodness toward myself, and for those that I love. ‘To cooperate with Goodness for every new person I encounter. Further, to participate with the Goodness that lives in the one I disagree with.

Our boss offers her own sage process: Prepare, then Live. That is, do the thing(s) you have actual control over, and then go about the business of Living your own loving life.

For some of us, that will mean grieving deeply. 2020 hurled loss and sorrow our way. Sometimes living our own loving life means that we need to turn inward — to love our own Self back to health and wholeness.

Others of us have not been dealt so cruel a blow (or blows). Perhaps we have the resources and strength to keep taking deep breaths, rolling up our sleeves, and offering steady-on courage in the midst of radically adapting Everything.

Take care of each other

2020 has been a great Teacher. We understand more clearly today what is most valuable to us. How we spend our time and limited resources may never be the same. Our ways of taking care of one another will deepen. That feels important, hey?

Whatever the disruption of 2020 has unfurled in your life, we here at Donate a Car Canada wish you Health — in body, mind, and spirit. We wish you provision: enough to live, and enough to share. May your relationships be rich in humor and tenderness. And may Comfort and Peace find you in all of the inbetweens.