When pondering “making up for the lost year”, it is important to understand what you lost and what might be recoverable. It may be even more important to understand what you gained. Understanding both enable you to determine what you really want. This lost year offered invaluable opportunities to understand and filter what is really important to your life and to think about how you want to live your life.

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Two relevant questions to consider are: Do you really want to make it up in order to re-position yourself on the prior timeline; and Do you want to recognize there may be aspects you intentionally choose to walk away from versus losing them or not recovering them?

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A consequence of answering these questions could be to recast the question: Can I walk into a more fulfilling future based on the insights gained during the lost year, living life with intention versus culturally assimilated expectations?

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The following gives a more detailed look at what was lost and gained. Worth understanding, use or not as appropriate.

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What did we lose and can we make it up?

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• Revenue and income and its consequences: Yes at least partially over time.
• Developing knowledge/skills/social status on the timeline that was in place prior to the isolation: You can make up knowledge/skills and status not necessarily on the prior timeline.
• Social networking: You can re-invigorate, it is unclear you will do it exactly the same.
• Human contact: You can re-invigorate with a must greater appreciation for its significance in your lives.
• Complacency: There is a risk of becoming complacent again.
• Predictability: There is some benefit to re-gaining this state. What is the cost to you and your future self?
• Your normal routine: You have been fundamentally changed. Making up for it, may be unrealistic.
• Living life on auto-pilot: You can re-gain living on auto-pilot. Is the cost worth it? Is that really what you want?

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What did we gain and can we benefit from it?

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• Flexibility
• Opportunity to become more comfortable with change
• Greater appreciation for family, close friends, and hobbies
• Need to make time for human contact
• Opportunity to understand and filter what is really important to your life
• Opportunity to think about how you want to live your life