THE SILVER LINING OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC:
I had a strange fantasy while on a long flight a few years back. I started to imagine what life would be like if it was simpler. What if I had to live without electricity, without my phone, and even, without money? What would my life be like, reading by candle light, having to leave my house to speak to someone and having to ask for help without the currency to exchange cash for service?
I lost myself in this vision, and funny enough, the thought of it made me so happy. I know it might sound crazy or strange, but the idea of living life with nothing but my body, my breath and my ability to connect with others, really excited me. It made me feel connected to the most essential parts of being alive. And now that it’s 2020, and COVID-19 is sweeping the world, I guess I can’t help but feel that this quarantine time can offer us an opportunity to get back to basics, to what’s really important in life.
We’ve been asked to stay home as much as humanly possible, in order to slow the spread of the virus, for who knows how many weeks. We are to shut down all unnecessary gatherings, work and travel, and only go out if absolutely necessary. Some people’s work doesn’t allow them to stay home, and for them, perhaps not much has changed. Some people have even more work due to the toll the virus is taking, or due to the confinement of others. Many, are genuinely busy and still working full time or helping others or taking care of small children inevitably dictating their lives. But it’s the people who get to stay home in particular, the fortunate ones who have more free time than usual, that I’d like to address now.
We’ve been granted full authority to do as little as possible and yet I am astounded at how quickly we’ve all scrambled to fill our schedules. As soon as the mandate went through I started getting emails and calls about what to do during this time, how to fill my schedule, how to keep structure in my day, how to keep socializing and meetings going. It feels like people are grasping to keep their lives as they were, in an attempt to push away the discomfort of the unknown.
What will I do with extra time if I have it? What will I do without my email constantly buzzing and without my weekly errands keeping me checking things off the to-do list and satiating my need to feel productive? How will I manage my time when it’s no longer dictated by appointments, commutes, clocks and deadlines?
Things have stopped, and many of us are privileged enough to sit back and enjoy it to some degree, yet we can’t fight the urge to busy ourselves as much as possible and try to re-create or simulate our lives as it they were before, fiercely resisting the slow down.
Ok, ok. I get it. We all need to maintain some semblance of normality. We all have things we can’t just drop and ignore and there are important things to keep up, like exercise, and human connection and any life management things you are still able to do. But I’m speaking of the compulsive need to fill your day with anything possible just to avoid boredom, or downtime, or even rest. I understand people want to maintain some normalacy, but dare I say, this is abnormal. So why fight it?
My Mom who lives in Mexico, told me that last week a young man rang her doorbell and asked if he could sweep her front street for a glass of water. My Mom obliged, and while he worked away, she also made him some quesadillas. When he saw she made him a meal, he swept even harder and longer. He ate his food, drank his water, and went on his way. I thought this was such a beautiful example of living life simply. An exchange that didn’t involve money, but a simple exchange of goods for services.
The awesome part is, I’m hearing about this happening in neighborhoods across the world. Even in Los Angeles neighbors are cooperating with each other with food and grocery runs. Before Covid-19, you wouldn’t dream in this day and age of asking your neighbor for a cup of sugar, because you can just get it yourself. And being the self-sufficient, individualistic society that we are, “You shouldn’t ask for a favor unless it’s an absolute emergency”. Well guess what? It’s definitely an emergency. It’s a worldwide pandemic that threatens people we know and love and the full extent of the consequences is yet to be known. As scary as that is, the silver lining is that this crisis brings us all closer together, reminding us that we are all interconnected, and that we rely entirely upon on each other for survival. It’s a reminder that we are all equal. Equally mortal at least, as death does not discriminate.
This situation may not be as extreme as my fantasy of living without technology and money, but still, it’s one that affords us the time to really recognize and reconnect to what’s most important. What do you really need to be alive and OK? What do your kids really need? Your husband/wife? Your parents?
Most of what you think you need you don’t need it all. We need oxygen, food, water, a warm place to sleep and rest (and apparently, toilet paper). We need social interaction, absolutely. And as much as we need time to engage and be active and challenged and work, we also need time without stimulus. And being the workaholic culture that we are, it seems to me, even before this pandemic, we didn’t get enough of that. Our society tends to dictate that we remain in constant “doing mode”, moving, rushing and trying to catch up. And now that we are going through this crisis, forcing us to hunker down and moving us over to the slow lane, most of us, are terrified to look outside the window. To see what normally passes by in a blur, now in full focus. But dare I ask, why not take a look? Why not slow down enough to see your life clearly and where it’s headed? And really, what is so wrong with doing less?
For so many of us our self-worth is wrapped up in this idea we have of being “productive” and yielding results. We forgot to honor and value ourselves for just being. You’d never stare at a sleeping baby and call it “useless” and “lazy”, and yet when you decide to take a break and relax, suddenly your self-judgment turns up the volume with all sorts of speculations about what that means about you and why it makes you an asshole.
Call me crazy, but I think it’s time to challenge our values as a society. I think it’s time to re-examine our quality of life, any how we approach our day. How much time do we actually spend with our kids? How does our community or government support or not support this? How much time do you have to do things you enjoy? How much of your work is actually, truly productive, and not just “busy work” designed to satiate your inner critic? And right now, I ask, if your current life circumstance allows it, what is so terribly wrong with doing less? With letting our minds and bodies unwind and restore themselves after years of being ruled by a schedule full of places and times to be somewhere doing something. For those who spend 1-3 hours commuting to work every day, how does it feel to have extra time in the morning to sip your coffee and read? How does it feel to have time for an evening stroll after dinner? To have more time to cook, to garden, to tackle that home project you’ve been wanting to do for so long?
One of the best parts of this quarantine so far, in my view, is seeing how many people are losing track of the time. People don’t know what day it is, and I find that incredibly refreshing. I think it’s wonderful because connects us to a different part of the brain, the part of the brain that loses itself in time. That’s the part of the brain that we use when are immersed in music, or dancing, or any kind of playing. And I’m seeing more playing.
I’m seeing people riding their bikes, going on long walks or roller blading for what looks like the first time in a long time. I’m seeing both Mom and Dad out with their kids playing games, finding creative ways to stay entertained, wearing costumes and leaving chalk messages on the sidewalk for the rest of us to see. I’m seeing people take time away from their phones, enjoying fresh air and arriving to this moment (not always looking to the next). People engaging with one another in a way that we normally don’t do when we are on a schedule and rushing from one thing to the other.
I don’t know about you, but for me it’s been a relief. It’s been nice to not have to constantly rush from one errand, appointment or meeting to another. It’s been great to get a little more sleep. To connect with friends and family more often, and to have the time and space in my day to be more present with them. I feel like the world has been moving so fast for so long, that I’ve personally been wanting to slow down for quite some time now. The sudden extra time in my day has allowed me room to expand, to remember parts of myself I may have left behind in the hustle and bustle, to remember what’s really important both in the big picture and in my daily existence. For all of this, I find myself effortlessly grateful. As though I was designed to move at a slower pace, and for years I’ve been going against my nature, to keep up with the world around me.
So maybe after you take care of the basics, like caring for yourself and your family, maybe after you do your part to help, even just by donating to a charity providing meals or much needed PPE, maybe after all that, try giving yourself permission to do a little of nothing. To approach artistic ventures you’ve always wanted to try, to learn something new or to read that book you keep setting aside for when you have time. To reconnect to what you love about life and who you love in your life. And even, to do something as purposeless as playing or dancing or listening to music. Something that yields no results, no answers, no productivity.
One of the gifts that this pandemic can yield is that we find ourselves with no choice but to simplify our lives. To get back to the meat and potatoes of what it means to be alive. I think that’s what every crisis comes to remind us. By bringing us uncomfortably close to the possibility of losing what we have, and/or to the possibility of death, it inevitably puts us more in touch with our aliveness, giving us a heightened sense of awareness of just how precious every moment we have really is.
And I for one, am grateful for this perspective. I hope that through the uncertainty and fear and pain, we can also find a way to bring forward all the positive things that can and will come from this event. Our connectedness and interdependence, how what’s good for you is what’s good for everyone, how much each and every one of our lives matter, and how to squeeze the sweetness out of every moment we are afforded another breath.
By Ellie Araiza
Nothing Beats Reality 