What a year 2020 has been!
After bunkering down for most of the year, many of us await the chance for new adventures. At Storylines, we are particularly looking forward to a luxurious life of travel, exploration and global experiences. In this past year we enjoyed our communities, our homes, our loved ones, and a small circle of friends. But as citizens of the World, a residence on MV Narrative gives us hope for an enriching and dynamic future.
With this to look forward to, we also take forward the lessons we have learned that we wish to maintain in our lives.
We learned so much this past year about how to enjoy the present moment
We learned how to be with our kids 24/7. How to work remotely. How to be helpful in our communities. How to be at peace with a slower pace without needing to rush from place to place. We proved that we don’t need to be busy... we can just be. We realized that “me” time is okay. And we finally had the time to focus on personal growth.
Many of us are now on a permanent trajectory of working from home
We proved that it is the way of the future. Many of us once shuddered at the idea of ‘homeschooling’ and are now realizing that our children are thriving. Our newfound freedoms of working and studying remotely are priceless to us. We want to hold on to these liberations, as part of our long-term lifestyle.
This is a pivotal moment
This is when we decide the lifestyle changes we will keep and what we won’t go back to. We now have the enormous value of hindsight. Soon, the world will start spinning again. Some of us will get swept up in the whirlwind and repeat the chaos of the past, but others of us will make conscious choices for a different future.
So how can we stay true to our new priorities?
How do we not revert to our old ways when the world inevitably returns to ‘normal’? We can articulate our new standards by writing them down and making our major life decisions based on what we have identified. Here is a starting point:
- What did we learn from not commuting?
- What did we learn about the best use of having more time?
- How can we integrate our current reality with our hopes for the future?
- What are we looking forward to that we couldn’t do in 2020?
- What new habits or values will we hold on to?
Discovering what is truly valuable, and what never was
Maybe we learned that we don’t need to spend so much time in the car...we can walk or ride a bike many places. Maybe we learned that we don’t need to have our kids enrolled in a dozen different activities...just a couple will do. Perhaps we learned that we don’t need to accomplish things that mostly serve a status quo...we can focus on the things that bring feelings of self-accomplishment.
Some of us learned that rushing around in the mornings to get out of the house isn’t worth the stress, and we’re deciding to make that a permanent lifestyle change. We all certainly learned the value of our health and how crucial it is to prioritize self-care as a habit going forward.
We know the world is not quite ready for global traveling yet
There are a few more steps to be taken before that can happen. Many experts say it may be towards the end of 2021. Others say it could be as late as mid-2022 when we can again safely choose where we wish to visit. Certainly, it seems it will be in order well before MV Narrative launches.
With that in mind, your team at Storylines continues to prepare for that, knowing that the lessons we have all learned in 2020 will deeply enrich us for the rest of our lives.