Complaining about 2020 feels a bit like beating the proverbial “dead horse”, but in fairness, 2020 started it, right? It can be easy to look back on 2020 as a complete disaster, with the negatives completely overshadowing the positives, and the pile of adversity seeming to crowd out the good.

Living in darkness and shadow just makes you weak, pasty, and pale, if we look to plants as teachers and examples. Plants that are meant to grow in full (or at least a good amount of) sunlight, but which are instead shaded and shadowed, don’t meet their full potential. They are thin, sickly, weak, and tend to grow abnormally. Over time, they often eventually succumb to their conditions and fall victim to attack by pathogens. However, despite all of that, if you look closely at the plants in shadow, you might make some interesting observations.

First, no plant that sits in darkness or shadow just sits there and accepts their fate. Plants in darkness reach for the light. They stretch and strain and grow upwards and outwards, seeking light, any light. They give it their all. They bend, twist, and curve around corners. They sacrifice the security and stability of a shorter stature for greater height and the future potential that light might bring them. They make every attempt to emerge from the darkness to leaf, blossom, and bear fruit.

Second, some plants know that they just have to keep growing, because their current situation will not be their permanent situation. Eventually, THEY will be to the big plants. Take a look at the mix of tree species in a natural forest, or even an unnatural one like a shelterbelt. The faster growing plants which are typically shorter lived (such as deciduous trees) quickly overshadow the slower growing plants (such as conifers). Over time, the conifers grow bigger and bigger. The shorter-lived trees eventually die down, making way for the next generation of trees to stretch up and take their place.

If you look at a different angle in a similar situation, specifically at what are called the “understory”, or plants that grow at ground level, you will see that some plants thrive in those semi-lit conditions. It isn’t that they “settle”, but rather, they recognize that they have a role to play where they are. They don’t look up at the underside of the tall tree canopy and wish that they were “up there”. They don’t spend time bemoaning their life in the undergrowth. They adapt and adjust and evolve, until it becomes clear that their part is just as important to everything else living in, under, and around them, including above them.

Abraham Lincoln captured that “understory attitude” pretty well.

Francis of Assisi was an 12^th century Italian Catholic friar who was sainted (or whatever that process is called) a couple of years after his death in his early 40s. He appeared to grasp the process that I am describing.

Just as shadows can darken our lives (if we let it), the winds of adversity can knock us around. But much like plants growing in shadows, trees growing in wind can teach us lessons. Trees that are exposed to wind and storms and challenging conditions while they are growing, actually grow stronger than those that are sheltered. The adversity forces the tree to make internal structural tissue adjustments that allow it to bend and not break and stand up to further struggles.

Take a minute and look at the past year through the lens of a tree. 2020 might be a shadowy year, but we can grow beyond it. Naturally, the ideal would be to have plenty of “sunshine” in our lives, without the shadows. But truthfully, a bit of adversity can actually be a good thing.

So, what does this all mean for us humans? Well, frankly, it would be easy to give up and focus on the shadows, and not grow beyond them. Alternatively, we can see the light and the positives that contrast the challenges of this past year. Simply by shifting our focus, and taking a positive attitude towards the past year, we will grow stronger and see that we are, in fact, better for our experiences. There were plenty of patches of sunlight amidst the shadows.

I encourage you to take some time to look back on the past year. Consciously count your blessings and make a list of the progress that you made, the things that you learned, and the good things that you experienced. For each and every experience (good or bad), look at what you gained from it, rather than what you lost. I think that you will see things differently. And you’ll see a mountain of growth, rather than a pile of difficulty.

From there, the rest is up to you. Personally, I would suggest that you make plans to build on the new capacity and potential of the “new and improved” you.