2020 might be remembered as the year where festivities and celebrations are cancelled. But perhaps it will also be remembered as the year we learn to participate in the greatest celebration on earth; one thing that is worth celebrating every single day. It's none other than gratitude.
Right as promised, I will talk about the greatest celebration that we learn to participate in this year. None other than gratitude itself. So yes as we all know by now, 2020 has been a weird year where we cannot hold the usual festivities and celebrations that we usually commemorate every year. For example for me, we didn't go for Qing Ming, and Vesak wasn't celebrated at the temple. And the most recent ones, Lebaran feels relatively weird and empty. Usually we could feel the spirit.
However, even though we have to go through these cancellations, I think we also learn to participate in another kind of celebration that we do everyday. Gratitude. We learn to count our blessings, what we have, who we are with and who stay with us and so on. When the going gets tough we learn to toughen up and find ways to get through this. When we see people facing hardships we also see people rising up the help one another. From news, social media and so on. It reminds me how blessed we all are.
We see the doctors, nurses and medical professionals working in the frontline curing people. We see the essential workers working tirelessly to keep things going. We see people supporting each other. And we see people adhering to rules by practising social distancing. As we go through isolation, we begin to notice the people and things around us. What we actually have, the selfless people working together, angels and heroes not many notice, but are actually surrounding us. They are everywhere.
And I think when we truly realise and notice what we truly have, we being to live a life filled with more gratitude. We become more thankful that this life as we know it is actually abundant. Abundant of resources, abundant of wonderful people. We see through the power of humanity. We see what we can truly do as a human being, and collectively as a human race. We seem to open our eyes.
And anyway, I kinda think that the root of every celebration is none other than gratitude itself too.
When we celebrate birthdays, we don't just celebrate the day we are born. But the fact that we have lived through another year. And without realising we're inching closer to our death. The same goes when we celebrate the passing of the clock at 12:00 every near year's eve. Thanksgiving is pretty obvious, we give thanks to whatever we went through in the year. Chinese New Year signifies the arrival of spring, another new year, new cycle. Where farmers go to work again after a harsh winter.
Ramadhan taught us the spirit of giving, to share and experience what the less fortunate goes through. Deepavali celebrates the victory of good versus evil. Every celebration is rooted in gratitude if you think about it. So perhaps 2020 is bringing us back to the root of these celebrations, by reminding us to celebrate gratitude every day. Probably the only thing worth celebrating every day.
And of course, I surely hope we can continue with this even after this whole pandemic is over!
Stay safe and take care as usual :)
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