Woolgathering #141: Lessons From A Year of Quarantine
Plus: Join me at PivotFest, the Wheaton Scale, and quarterly retreats
As for most people in the U.S., my life was turned upside-down around March 15th, 2020. We had been hearing about COVID-19 for a few months, and the chatter became progressively louder, but we didn’t expect that it would turn into a lockdown that would keep most of the world away from each other for over a year.
But here we are — a year since being told to stay in our homes and away from each other — and it’s hard to underestimate just how much has changed during that time. When I say “changed,” I’m not talking about the world stage. I’m not talking about the political discourse, the tone of news coverage, the corporate rallying cries, or the socioeconomic structure. All of those things changed radically, of course. And they’re important to understand. But I’m no expert on those.
Rather, what I’m here to talk about is the day-to-day struggles and triumphs of life. The job stuff, the home stuff, the family stuff, the friends stuff, the relationship stuff, the emotional stuff. I’m here to talk about how — despite 2020 throwing a giant monkey-wrench into the well-oiled machine that was my daily routine — I am grateful for it.
Am I crazy to be grateful for the trials and tribulations of a year that nearly everyone is ready to forget about? I don’ think so. And I don’t think you’d be crazy to take a second look at it, either. Because for all the hurdles 2020 threw at each of us, if we were able to jump over them — even if that meant tripping and falling — we stood to learn a great deal from them. Because each of those hurdles were teachable moments.
In fact, as years of teachable moments go, 2020 was pretty high up there. Did it suck out loud? Of course. But that sucking is the sound of a lesson just waiting to be learned by us. Sucking is often the first step toward growth.
So without further ado, here are the 5 lessons that 2020 taught me — ones that continue to help me grow.
Join Me on March 31 at PivotFest 2021, for Free!
I’ll be doing a brief talk, along with some interactive discussion, at a virtual get-together called PivotFest. It takes place on March 31.
The theme of the event is change, especially in a year as challenging as 2020.
Admission is free, and there are other speakers and workshops going on. Click the link below to check it out.
Feed Your Mind
A “Wheaton Scale” of Personal Productivity?
The "Wheaton Scale" is a concept that comes from permaculture guru Paul Wheaton that deals with levels of mastery and immersion in a subject, going from 0 to 10. This infographic is a great explanation of the levels.
But Better Humans founder/editor Tony Stubblebine asks what the scale would look like for productivity. He offers an initial suggestion & explanation. BH editor Terrie Schweitzer weighs in with her suggestions. For those who love to nerd out about learning, mastery, and systems—this is fun reading.
Ian Byrd on Doing a Quarterly Retreat
I’ll let the author speak for himself here:
The retreat is not a vacation, but it’s also not “work.” I’m not sending email or writing or doing my usual daily tasks. Instead, I’m zooming way out. I’m thinking and planning. In one way, it’s much harder work than a typical day, because it’s all reflection and planning and decision making. This is high-level thinking. But it’s also fulfilling and refreshing. By the end of the retreat, I’m always excited to get back to work.
The Harmful Effects of the First-Person Essay Bubble
A LOT of great pull quotes from this essay in Slate, but here’s one that puts a neat little bow on the issue:
This is a key problem with the new first-person economy: the way it incentivizes knee-jerk, ideally topical self-exposure, the hot take’s more intimate sibling. The mandate at xoJane, according to Carroll, was: the more “shameless” an essay, the better. Carroll describes how “internally crushing” it became to watch her inbox get flooded every day with the darkest moments in strangers’ lives: “eating disorders, sexual assault, harassment, ‘My boyfriend’s a racist and I just realized it.’ ” After a while, Carroll said, the pitches began to sound as if they were all written in the same voice: “immature, sort of boastful.”
A Question
Imagine you’re sitting down to meet with yourself from 20 years ago. You run through what’s gone on in the past 20 years of your life—the good, the bad, the successes, the failures, and so on.
What would you from 20 years ago think of who you are now, and what you’ve done in that time?
This question is great because it forces you to step back a bit further than normal to evaluate your life. It also forces you to look at how much your values have changed in 20 years—and whether that was for the better, or for the worse.
A Quote
“The climb might be tough and challenging, but the view is worth it. There is a purpose for that pain; you just can't always see it right away.”
- Victoria Arlen