2020 is one hell of a year. But through all the ups and downs, there are lessons to be learned from this god-forsaken year. With some reflection upon all the dwellings 2020 had in hand, I learned an important lesson, investing. 2020 made me realize the importance of investing in life. When investing comes to mind, it is reminiscent of money. However, not just investing financially, 2020 also made me learn about the importance of investing in health and time.

During this pandemic and work-from-home situation, many people started trading stocks, not just in Indonesia but everywhere else in the world. Although only a few made real money out of it, in my opinion, this trend made everyone learn the importance of financial literacy. Our education system forces us to study economics but not about our household economy. I would bet a hundred bucks that no school course teaches us where to invest our savings. Luckily, this pandemic made me closer to my dad, which in my opinion, is a well-learned financial man. Although he might not be the brightest student in school, he has plenty of knowledge about money. I started reaching out to him to learn, and I learned a lot from him.

We work hard to earn money to live. However, sometimes we make more than we need. One question that comes to mind is, what do I do with this money? It is common knowledge to save up the money for our future. But what future? And how? He taught me that money is equivalent to time. To earn money, we spend time a work. A 40-hour workweek equals our monthly paychecks. Vice-versa, we use the money to save our time. When we get sick, we pay for our hospital bills to “prolong” our lifespan. However, there is expiration date of our productivity. In the future, when we get old, we might not have the time to work or the energy. However, our saved up money will buy us more time and, if lucky enough, luxury. A lot of young people are short-minded, including me. We save up our money to buy things that we want like a new phone, laptop, or watches. However, we never think that when we reach a certain age, we will retire, and our retirement plan would not suffice for all our daily needs. Therefore, it is crucial to start saving as early as possible.

Now that we know the importance of our savings, the next question would be to save this money? There are plenty of financial mediums provided to us, mutual funds, the stock market, obligation, insurance, etc. These financial mediums, or what my father would call “vehicles,” allow our money to keep running. It would produce passive income in the form of interest rates to accumulate even more immense wealth.

Besides investing financially, 2020 made me learn the importance of investing in health. Due to the Covid outbreak, people begin to realize the importance of health, including me. Before Covid, health was not a big issue. No one realized the importance of keeping a healthy body. People worked hard every day in the office to chase their dreams financially. Everyone sided to eating fast food for both their practicality and greasy pleasures. Little did they know that these small habits degrade their health over time.

During this lockdown, where we could not go anywhere, I started doing workouts at home—just a small routine at night or an occasional jog around the block. Moreover, I started eating healthy at home, especially since my mom started cooking our daily meals. Back in high school, I would rummage upon every junk food the canteen has to offer. Through these small steps of staying healthy (since I’m gaining weight at home), I realized the importance of staying healthy. Every time I worked out, I slept better at night and waked up more energized, which leads to better productivity during the day. Previously, I stayed up all night to binge-watch my favorite series or just scroll through Instagram. Ever since I started these small steps, my productivity increased ten-fold.

Besides all these productivity perks, working out and staying healthy also increases the body’s immune system. Everyone knows that Covid is a hazardous virus, but having a great immune system might as well decrease the chances of contracting one. From all Covid patients, the ones who suffer the worst symptoms are inadequate immune systems or older people. Even worse, elders who did not develop a healthy habit earlier did not survive the virus infection. Therefore, staying healthy by working out and eating healthy is beneficial both during this pandemic and long-term.

Besides having to stay at home during this pandemic, I had my first breakup this year. To cope up with this breakup, I made myself as busy as possible and stopped social media. Some might say it’s emotionless, but it kind of worked since I had so much going on in my mind that it made me forget about this bitter experience. Right after breaking up and picking up a social media diet, I continued studying programming, which I stopped halfway past this year. Moreover, I started working a part-time online job while studying at university. It made me so busy that I forgot about social media and everything within it. It made me learn that time is relative to how we spend it.

Time is precious; therefore, we have to save it. I calculated the time I spent on my phone, and it was a whopping 6 hours of screen time. Imagine what I could have done if I spared an hour every day besides opening my phone. I would have an extra 30 hours every month to do something new. Due to this bitter experience, I started deleting all the addicting apps I have on my phone and strictly limit my screen time. I started reading a lot during the day, finished my schoolwork earlier, studied more focus, and worked a part-time job, which enabled me to open a trading account. My past self would not believe what I had accomplished in this short period.

Therefore, I hope that we could all realize the importance of investing in time. Try to declutter our daily lives from the hectic social media apps. Save up some time to learn something new, invest in our knowledge. Someday, and it will eventually come, all these small investments that we make will indeed pay off. Invest financially, and you will survive any crisis. Invest in your health, and you will survive any disease. Invest in your time, and you will become a more remarkable person. I hope that this small reflection becomes a reminder to all of us of the importance of investing.

What have you learned from 2020?