We can’t take 2020 away, but we can learn from it. More so, those lessons we take with us can aid us in being better as we progress to the next year. 

Like any year, peering back on the highs and lows can serve us through the gain of valuable knowledge. Unlike most other years, 2020 was notably challenging to manage. 

There is an impression that many people would concur with. This previous year is beyond anything they predicted, and perhaps beyond anything they have regularly encountered before. 

2020, The Year Of Covid-19

2020 will permanently be remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The year that over 1.7 million individuals around the world, comprising over 336,000 Americans, lost their lives to this unusual epidemic. 

The pandemic placed a monstrous burden on many people. For some, they knew the despair of losing a loved one, others might have experienced the anxiety from a lost job. There was a multitude of sentiments from dread, stress, depression and a scarcity of hope. So much was squeezed into a single year. 

Reflecting On The Past Year

As there is a reflection on all of this and what it means, a spiritual teaching keeps tapping on my mind. That teaching instructs us that what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and it defiles a man. When we speak of man here, we are speaking of all humans.

Of course, we are not speaking of our physical heart, but the soul of man, the essence of who we are, the root of our being. It is here that the wellspring of life ebbs and it is here, our authentic nature lives. 

What The Pressures of 2020 Can Teach Us.

When life places pressure on a person, that pressure compresses the heart of a person, and we are more apt to express our genuine nature or character. 

That is what 2020 did for all of us, it was a period of pressure and it either created precious treasure within us, or it presented to the world who we honestly are. 

The teaching I discussed above lists various elements that end up defiling man based on what’s in their heart. One of those elements, the one tying off the end of the list, is slander. 

Slander is a precarious word, because it occupies so many meanings. A current interpretation of slander might include saying something false or malicious that damages another person. While this is an accurate definition, the undertones of slander within this teaching go further than that. 

If we consider the language they wrote this guidance in, we recognize that slander here can likewise mean abusive speech, mocking, disdainful, insulting or haughty speech that devalues another being. We could continue with an understanding of slander, but this will satisfy. 

Who Were You When Pressure Came?

With 2020 applying pressure to the hearts of everybody around us, we had a window view into who some of our dearest colleagues, family and companions are at their core. 

Some of that was not what we expected. Some of that was not who we prefer to be, because what appeared out of our heart was literally what this teaching warned us about. 

Our words have power, the power to produce life to a thing in a state of decay, and the strength to deliver death to something full of life. We must determine how we use our words because of the potential they exert. 

How Did You Respond to Others?

We each need to take a focused look at our dialogue over the last year. How did you react to the constrains of this year? 

Did you devalue an individual, or groups of people because of a difference? Did a meme or video get shared that may have looked down on someone else? Was there a share, like or post that was disparaging towards others for any reason? 

What was in your heart this year? What developed when the pressure hit? In the years to come, will you be proud of what you said towards any other being? 

To be apparent, we are all subject to this. Me, you, the people around us. No one is safe from ourselves at times. This year produced pressure and proved we all need to work on being better towards others. 

Bring Forgiveness And A Right Heart Into 2021

Start today and take it into the new year with us. We can extend forgiveness to others who may have hurt us with their words. We can likewise request others to forgive us for any form of slander we expressed intentionally or inadvertently. 

What If your uncertain if you fall into these categories? Extend and ask for forgiveness anyway because we all have emotions and sometimes we might not recognize the hurt we felt or the harm we spread. 

Going forward, we draw on the knowledge of ourselves from 2020 and we can be more mindful of our hearts, what develops out of them and how we can be better towards ourselves and others.