2020 was a challenging year for everyone. Old people died, young people missed out on parts of life. There was extreme social unrest. It was a historic, yet forgettable year for almost everyone involved.

I could write 1,000 words on every single thing that happened in 2020, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to write about the one thing that we didn’t see in 2020.

Unity. 

Unity is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the quality or state of not being multiple. Also known, as one.

As much as it may not seem, we are all one. One community, one nation, one world. Whether pro-life or pro-choice, pro-mask or anti-mask, pro-capitalism or pro-socialism, pro-Trump or pro-Biden. We are all one. 

Whether you are white or Black, Christian or Muslim, a Hawkeye fan or a Cyclone fan, LGBTQ+ or straight, rich or poor. At the end of the day, we are all human.

We are all humans with opinions, so naturally, we are all going to disagree with people, that’s the beauty of being human. Disagreement can lead to some productive conversations and sometimes even lead to parties meeting in the middle, but as we saw in 2020, oftentimes it does the opposite. 

Social media has given everyone a platform to have an opinion on anything they want. This has brought the absolute worst in people. Strangers hate each other because of a difference in opinion. Friendships and relationships with families have been torn apart because of two men who don’t even know your name. That is not unity.

Unity means being together. As a Simpson community, every single individual needs to buy in to be together. This year there will be debates, there will be disagreements and there will be controversies. But if there is one goal we can have for this year, it’s to disagree with respect for one another. 

It is okay to disagree with peers. It is okay to have views that are drastically different from your roommate. It is not okay to purposely offend someone else because of your opinion. It is not okay to personally attack someone just because you disagree. We are all better than that, we are all human.

The biggest lesson that I learned in 2020 was that every single person feels the way they do for a reason. What’s important about disagreeing is not the opinion in itself, instead, it’s the reason behind why someone feels the way they do. When we begin to see why the other side of the argument feels the way we do, that’s when we can finally start to meet in the middle.

In 2021, I think that our goal as Simpson students should be to make some sacrifices for the betterment of our campus community. My goal is that we can meet in the middle on certain issues and recognize that at the end of the day we are all human, and we can do so much more good than just argue. 

No matter what opinions and differences we hold, we are all united at Simpson. Let’s buy into that, here’s to 2021.