2020: "Good" or "Bad"?

The year of 2020 has been a year of mishaps so far, but whether one thinks the year was relatively good or bad this year depends on one's optimism. Thoughts about this idea popped into my head while I was re-reading the book Think Like a Freak for my summer nonfiction title to prepare for next week and what we might do with these books. That book was all about thinking with an open mind and letting your mind wander at times to solve problems more efficiently. What caught my interest was definitely the open-minded mindset that is talked about in the book, because open-mindedness is a form of optimism, or at least is a trait of optimists. Thinking with an open mind about the year of 2020, many events in the year that we might consider "bad" and made the year a "bad" year could just as easily be viewed in a positive light if we think about them from a different perspective. 

Take, for example, quarantine. It might seem dull and really hard to work around if you have a pessimistic attitude. No social gatherings, working from home affecting productivity, having to wear a mask to even go outside, and, of course, the state of the world and the fear of the virus are all valid reasons as to why the quarantine is one of the worst things to happen in recent years. But looking at it from another perspective, one more optimistic that the last, the quarantine might be a time to catch up with family, relax at home, and have a quiet workplace to some who have to work in noisy offices. Obviously not everyone is capable of being optimistic like this: laborers and shop owners hit hard by the pandemic will probably be less optimistic than people with professions that are able to be worked on from home. However this is just an example to show the contrast between optimism and pessimism. Others may argue that the numbers of the losses from the quarantine overrule everything else. In the words of Steven D. Levitt, the author of Think Like a Freak, "The plural of anecdote is not data" (Levitt 53). It is a matter of perspectives, whether there is hard data to back one point of view up or not. Everything said from both the optimism and pessimism sides were completely true in the eyes of people who think like optimists or pessimists. Another example in recent times is the tragedy of George Floyd, where a police officer choked a peaceful black man out for the color of his skin and sparked a huge black lives matter movement on social media and in cities around the country. A pessimist would probably think that this tragedy was terrible because an innocent man died and it shows the duality of the police force when it comes to different treatment based on stereotypes. However, an optimist would think that the takeaway from this tragedy was very important as the huge BLM movement showed us all that standing by and letting acts of racism happen made us part of the problem, which made Americans more aware and more willing to openly support the clause, making our country more progressive and focused on equality.

An older example of different perspectives is the Cenotaph memorial we talked about in class. "Thus all the combinations of memory are enacted: imaginative presence and physical absence; corpses and corpselessness" (Booth 4). The cenotaph was a memorial for missing soldiers during World War II, a memorial that honored soldiers whose bodies could not be found after a battle. Families of the soldiers who were lost might think differently about the fact that their loved ones are missing based on their mindset. A pessimist might be devastated that their loved one couldn't even have an honorable death and sad that they won't even be remembered by the public even though they contricuted to the war effort

Optimists might think that it is already an honor to have a memorial built after their loved one died and use it as confirmation that their loved one who died on the battlefront would be remembered forever.

I am not trying to say that forgetting about the problems of the world is the correct way to think, because, frankly, there isn't one singular correct mindset that we must all follow. If that were true, society would stay stagnant as there would be no argument in ideals or anything, for that matter. No progress would be made if we all had the same morals, ideas, and philosophies. What I am trying to get across, however, is the fact that being open-minded can help people take the good things out of bad events, however small they might be. This goes a long way in ensuring everyone still retains their hope for the future, and, especially with the uncertain future of the year 2020, it is important for us to hold onto whatever amount of hope we can get.