Amanda Knox says she 'wouldn't trade' her life while sharing advice for navigating 2020

Amanda Knox shares life advice amid coronavirus pandemic (Getty Images)

Amanda Knox has shared her advice for navigating the uncertainty of 2020 while explaining why she wouldn’t “trade” her own life despite her hardships.

Knox, who spent nearly four years in an Italian prison before she was acquitted in 2015 of charges related to the murder of her roommate, revealed her guidance in a new blog post titled: “The Art of Being Lost.”

In the essay, published on Medium’s Forge, Knox compared her experience feeling “perpetually lost,” with how the rest of the country feels now amid the coronavirus pandemic, the economic recession, and the upcoming presidential election.

“It’s been five years since I was definitively acquitted for a murder I didn’t commit, and I’m still unsure what my best path forward is,” she wrote. “I don’t know if I can ever restore my reputation or achieve anything that will impact my life as much as this external trauma has.

“I feel perpetually lost. This year, the rest of the country has joined me.”

But, according to Knox, this uncertainty actually allows room for growth, and can even be an asset.

“Life is a never-ending series of problems, but problems are opportunities,” she wrote.

Referencing her own experiences, Knox recalled how her lack of Italian meant she was “confused and vulnerable in prison and in court,” before she eventually used her time in prison to become fluent in the language.

In addition to helping her with her own case, the 33-year-old said that her language abilities allowed her to help other inmates, who relied on her translation.

Knox also spoke of how her experience being vilified by the media and people she has never met has changed her, explaining that she is now a “committed skeptic of the popular narrative and far less judgmental about people I’d never met.”

The constant public attention offered Knox the opportunity to shine a spotlight on other issues as well, such as the “wrongful convictions that disproportionately affect Black and Brown men in our country.”

“Right now, our society is lost. But what has been true for me is true for us all. Facing a host of seemingly insurmountable problems, with no clear direction ahead of us, we have incredible opportunity,” she wrote. “There is no more fertile ground for radical ideas.”

Knox concluded the essay revealing that although she “never asked for this life,” she “wouldn’t trade it” - both because regret “stifles imagination,” and because of the opportunities that arise in moments of confusion.

“So when you wake up tomorrow, and it’s still 2020, and the dumpster is still blazing, ask yourself: What fresh hell is this? And what can I build here that simply could not be imagined in that older, safer, and simpler world?” she wrote.

Knox was convicted and acquitted of the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007 in Italy. Her 2011 acquittal was overturned in 2013, and she was again convicted of murder in 2014, before again being acquited in 2015.

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