Why 2020 was a crucial year for Humanity

Here we are.

How was your 2020?

Not good, definitely worse than any year before or complete dumpster fire?

That is true for the majority of the people on this planet and I wouldn’t dare to argue against it. There was so much going on at any given time that it was overloading your senses given the constant bombardment of bad news over bad news. Even if you were not directly affected by the pandemic, it was a year where humanity had to face a massive threat on a scale previously only reserved for alien invasion and zombie apocalypses.

Earth is not crying for help! It will be there when we are long gone! We are the ones in need of help!

I wouldn’t say 2020 was a good year but I would definitely argue that it was a crucial year for mankind as a whole. We were witness to a lot of learnings that we can take and actually better our lives and in the process, better the only planet we have (unless Mars is ready for mass immigration which frankly won’t happen in our lifetime).

I have summarized some of those points below –

Climate Change is real and it is deadly. Nature has given us enough warning that we have stupidly ignored and if we don’t do anything to curb the damage, we won’t be here for long. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and wildfires will be a common occurrence and will force us to remain captive unless we learn to have a symbiotic relationship with nature.

The melting of ice-caps is freeing viruses that were frozen millions of years ago and which we aren’t prepared for.

If Covid-19 had a 10% fatality rate (instead of the 1-2%), the world would now be in chaos and anarchy. We have been very lucky and we still believe ourselves to be supreme which is humanity’s fatal flaw.

2020 made us visit a glimpse of the future and we were not at all prepared for it. If we do not adopt sustainable practices, the coronavirus pandemic is just the start of many more graver threats to come. We are scared of being isolated for a year. Imagine a future where that becomes the norm because we failed to take action

We do not need stuff. We want stuff and just a few months in lockdown made me realize that we run the markets and not the other way around. We don’t need a new phone every year, new clothes every season, or new crap that we convince ourselves to buy. We are driven by targeted marketing and it is ruining us as a society. I am not advocating that you don’t buy essentials, I am asking you to stop putting money into things that don’t serve long term benefits for a short term dopamine effect.

A few things taken care of speaks more than a thousand things used once!

So in short, 2021 is a year of change and action and belief that we are not doomed as a species. If we still don’t change our ways and continue to act like before the pandemic started after the vaccine is made, we are headed on the highway to extinction.

If this article was unpleasant to read or scares you, I hope it makes you turn a new page over and actually start thinking about our present and what we are on the verge of. We are at a crucial point in our existence.

We can choose to ignore all warning signs and be blindsided by the truck and act like the surprised Pikachu meme.

We can do our small parts as individuals which will make it possible for us to think about a future where we can roam free, where we are not hindered by our own wrongdoings. Where staying indoors is an option, not a mandate.

It is up to us. There is no easy way of saying it. All hope is not lost but if we stay on our current trajectory, it surely will be.