Month-in-Review Highlights: June 2020
A lone black high-heeled shoe on the curb in Vidy, Switzerland, without a person or another shoe in sight. June 14, 2020.
I postmortem each month shortly after it ends, reflecting on what happened in general and, more specifically, in the context of my goals. Though I don’t share all my insights here, I have made it a practice to share at least one key highlight or insight. (To read previous months’ reviews, click here.)
The end of May arrived with the upsurge of the Black Lives Matter movement. June ended with a return to focus on the COVID-19 crisis. What whiplash.
We knew the COVID-19 virus story hadn’t ended; we’d all just hoped by now it would have come under more control than it has. In fact, we’d all hoped that the first wave of the virus would have wrapped. Instead, it seems like the first wave of the virus has just begun in large swaths of the United States.
The rapid increase in coronavirus cases pushed the Black Lives Matter movement to the news-cycle background. I worry that the movement’s incredible momentum and important work, which seemed to gain some level of traction in 2020 after years of trying, will fall by the wayside. I fear that people will get distracted before real change can happen.
Real change takes time and work—much of it not fun. People don’t like things that take time and work in general, and they especially shy away from change that requires enjoyment-free effort. Further, with a pandemic raging, people seem likely to have an even greater tendency than in other times to avoid the heavy lifting involved in achieving important change. And so.
I can only continue to keep the movement and its importance in the front of my own consciousness and to continue to do the hard work and to contribute to the efforts required to effect the evolutions toward equality and justice that society has so long needed.
Now that half the year has passed, I reflect on 2020 so far and see how starkly different it looks from my expectations. I see silver linings in the year to date, sure. Further, I haven’t experienced anything remotely close to what I could call terrible, especially considering what others have experienced.
However, I feel it fair to acknowledge that we all mourn our expectations, hopes, and plans in this moment—including me.
A lot of what I had planned to accomplish in 2020, in keeping with progress toward my overall life goals, hasn’t happened due to forces beyond my control. I need to feel okay with this; much of life is out of our control even in “normal” times, when you think on it.
Instead of wallowing in thwarted expectations, I can keep stepping forward on goals unaffected by the pandemic and I can assess the intention and spirit behind the other plans I’d made and see if I can find another way to achieve my objectives.
I’d wanted to expand my perspectives through exploring worlds and cultures and ideas? Maybe I do so less through travel and direct cultural experiences and more through reading and conversation. Similarly, I may not realize my social goals through in-person gatherings, but more through on-line interaction. (We’ve all gotten good at videoconferencing these days, haven’t we?)
When it comes to writing, exercise, and language-learning goals, I can’t blame the pandemic for not moving forward—even if I don’t feel particularly creative, sporty, or conversational in this moment.
I’ve kept up my fitness activities (though I could do more) and I’ve managed to get back into writing through showing up at the keyboard at set times, even if I don’t love what results. Further, though I don’t have much opportunity to speak to people and learning French has felt a little abstract during confinement than it might otherwise, I continue to study the language each day for my allotted learning period and hope that eventually it will all come together.
Of course, on some fronts, taking different steps won’t get me “there.” A pandemic wreaks havoc on sales and business-growth goals, for example. (Well, at least for companies providing marketing services, like mine.) However, we’ve stayed creative and dedicated and kept at it, and I take heart in that.
If I do the work, results will come. They usually do, after all, and in all realms.
Looking back on it (as I am in this post), I see a theme for the month, if not a theme for the global moment: We need to make sustained efforts, even on different-than-expected paths, to reach our desired destinations.
Showing up each day to do our best step-by-step work will progress us on all fronts: True for holding together families (biological and chosen) as cohesive units amid all today’s stress. True for racial justice, even when we struggle to face the facts. True for COVID-19 management and safety with illness raging around us. True for taking care of our individual mental and physical health amid all the personal, professional, political, and public drama. True for keeping work and careers moving forward.
Moving forward—physically and metaphorically—happens one step at a time.
Keep stepping.