Here we are into December — the last month of the first year of this decade. Last year about this time I looked back at the 2010 decade… a lot of “good and bad” things happened, but I suspect history will record it as a fairly “normal” decade.
As we’re nearing the end of the first year of this decade, 2020 is shaping up to be the worst year ever. You’ve heard that haven’t you? You’ve probably even said it. The social upheaval that flared after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, that led to protests, some accompanied by looting — the death and economic destruction caused by the pandemic — the government’s mismanagement of the pandemic — the constant political bickering and non-functioning government… it certainly hasn’t been the best of years, but the worst year ever?
I got to thinking about that…. I’ve been fortunate, in my 80 plus years, I can’t say that I’ve ever had a really bad year. Sure — bad things have happened, loved ones and friends have died, we’ve had some illnesses that were on the serious side, jobs that went bad and things like that. But that’s all part of life. One of my friends said that not counting the pandemic, this year reminded him of 1968. I can see his point — Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, the Vietnam war was raging, police beat protesters at the Democratic National Convention and rebellions erupted in streets all over the country.
A number of historians claim that the worst year was 536. That year a volcano erupted in Iceland and the sun dimmed for a year and a half, leading to a catastrophic global cold spell.
So the “worst year” is really objective, and, obviously personal. None of us lived through 536, so we can’t really make a comparison, just like most of us can’t relate to the Spanish flu pandemic or the Great Depression.
For a lot of us, 2020 has been the worst year ever and, of course, it’s been far worse for some than others, but it’s touched us all. And it probably hasn’t been helped by the media constantly telling us what an awful year it is.
Actually, maybe worst isn’t the right word — maybe a better word would be strange. We’ve never experienced anything like it. But taken one day at a time, most of us can look around and find happiness, satisfaction or enjoyment in this “new normal.” And when we really think about it, maybe it isn’t the worst year of our lives….
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