Never have our lives been so unusual. We are truly living in unprecedented times and honestly, it feels a little like everything is falling apart. We’ve lost our jobs, our incomes, and our security. Our friends and family are being forced to stay away. Nothing feels all that great right now.
Still, inside the darkness, there is light. When everything is falling apart, there are still things that should bring you back to reality. It’s not misguided positivity, it’s sobering truths that we should hold close when our hardship starts to feel like too much to handle.
I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all been through something difficult in our lives. I doubt there are many among us who have lived perfect, easy lives. We’ve all faced hardship before, and we all know that pain is temporary.
When everything is falling apart, it can be easy to give up and assume things will be this way forever. In these surreal times of a global pandemic, it seems like we’ve got no evidence to fall back on, but we do. Every hard phase has come to an end eventually.
Every time you thought life would never get better, it did. When you find yourself spiraling, as we all do at times, bring yourself back with this one sobering truth – pain doesn’t last forever.
Worrying has been proven time and time again to be terrible for your health. It increases your risk of countless illnesses, including heart conditions, cancer, and stroke. It’s also bad for your immune system, and in times like these when we’re all trying to be as healthy as possible, worrying will never help.
Letting your mind run free with fear won’t fix the current crisis or any others. You can’t worry the world better. No amount of “planning” or “understanding”, as we anxious folk convince ourselves we’re doing, will make a dangerous virus go away any sooner or be any less deadly.
Instead of dwelling on the idea that everything is falling apart, focus on what you can do to keep it together. You could consider donating to charities, or volunteering. Remember that by staying home, you are helping. You don’t need to worry if you’re already you’re doing exactly what needs to be done to fix the world.
We might be experiencing an extreme example right now, but it’s working. Never have I been more grateful for the people I love, and the little moments of joy we get each day. I also know I’ll be more appreciative of the freedom and moments of social non-distancing we get when all of this is over.
If you live a totally undisturbed life, you might not feel much appreciation for the best times, because they aren’t much different from the worst. Now, when it seems that everything is falling apart, we’re truly grateful for what we still have, and what we can’t wait to get back.
As the saying goes, you only know what you’ve got when it’s gone.
No matter how much we wish it, we can’t speed this one along. At times, this process feels incredibly slow. We don’t have an end date in sight, and we all know how slowly time passes when we’re stuck at home.
If you feel that everything is falling apart, your first instinct is to fix it as soon as possible. We want the problem solved and we don’t care how we get there. But we don’t get that choice right now. This isn’t something we can rush through. In fact, the more we try to rush this by forcing normality before it’s time, the longer we’ll have to wait.
If we have no choice but to wait it out, then there’s no better time to practice patience. We get wrapped up in modern life so often that we rarely have to wait for anything. Take this opportunity to learn a skill most of us, myself included, don’t have. The world might be a little nicer if we all emerge from this with more patience.
In this time of darkness, when it seems that everything is falling apart, there is one thing always left – kindness. We are suffering now, globally. There’s no skirting around it, global pandemics really suck. We feel as though we’ve lost everything, but we haven’t. We haven’t lost each other.
Kindness keeps us moving, gives us strength and brings us closer. Being nice to others in this difficult time makes a huge difference. During your moments outside, exchange a smile with a fellow exerciser. Greet neighbors when you pass them (at a distance).
You’d be surprised how much these minor interactions could change someone’s day. Be gentle and respectful of others, especially those who are still having to work.
The kinder you are on the outside, the kinder you’ll be to yourself too. Nothing is better for your self-esteem than making others happy.
Unprecedented times teach us things we would never have had the opportunity to learn before. We may have gone our whole lives never learning how to entertain ourselves. We could never have had this time to learn new hobbies, or really get to know ourselves.
They say you grow through what you go through, and that couldn’t be truer now. I like to think that when this whole thing is over, we’ll all emerge like butterflies. Harrier, less manicured butterflies, but butterflies nonetheless.
Right now, by doing absolutely nothing, you’re developing skills you could have lived your entire life without. Of course, we’re growing patience, and we’re also growing resilience.
In the future, when life inevitably gets chaotic again (though hopefully not in the same way) you’ll be ready to face it head-on, knowing you’ve faced serious hardship already. The minor troubles that might have set off a spiral before won’t phase us anymore.
We’ve been learning to be gentle with ourselves and others. We’ve learned to be happy with the little victories and accepting of the losses. Awful things are happening all over the world, and as everything feels like it’s falling apart, we’re developing strength like never before.
Before you let your thoughts of hopelessness drag you down, remember that some important facts of life, the sobering truths, will never change. Everything isn’t falling apart, no matter how close it might feel. Gratitude is what will hold us together.
I know it sounds mad, but enjoy this time. Embrace the people around you, whether it’s family or friends at home, or neighbors you pass on a daily walk. Embrace the time for yourself, to get to know you. This will end and we will get back to normal, and maybe we’ll all be better people when we do, but until then remember things aren’t always as broken as they seem.
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Thanks for sharing this Becky - just great. I couldn't agree more.
Useful remarks remember that it would be necessary not to exaggerate in fact a couple of months at home do no harm to anyone, on the contrary! Instead we learned many things that it is good to remember in the future for example not to pollut. We had forgotten the clean air.
No do not embrace anyone right now
Re GETTING BACK TO NORMAL:
Did you know that Delta Airlines is having huge problems? How are they dealing with this? They are laying off up to 7,000 pilots and grounding all the Boeing 777 airplanes. Their passenger count has dropped from 2 million per day to 200,000 per day.
Some of these groundings and layoffs are forever.