Hey, Brad.
I know you’re struggling right now.
You moved to a new city, leaving your friends and family behind. You took a job where’s it’s been tough to build friendships outside of work, then started working from home when you got the chance. You found that going to the grocery store made you anxious, so now you get groceries delivered to your home. You tried to build a workout habit at your local gym, but the other patrons made it hard for you to focus and you stopped going. You signed up for an aikido class, but after a couple of months, you showed up less and less often.
In short, you’ve created a life that revolves around staying home.
And the longer you stay at home, the harder it gets to leave. Your job has become the only thing that gives your day any structure and your reason for getting up in the morning. But when you’re done with work, you agonize over all the other things you “should” be doing.
You should go to the office for some human contact. You should be looking for other social activities. You should write more. You should get more exercise. You should build your professional skills. You should consider professional help if you can’t figure things out on your own.
As your former therapist liked to say, you’re “shoulding” all over yourself. This does nothing but overwhelm you with guilt and anxiety. Then you try to numb yourself by watching YouTube clips, playing video games, and taking naps. Before you know it, it’s nighttime and you’ve done nothing for yourself. Now you feel even worse.
As each day like this piles up, the weight gets heavier and your outlook grimmer.
My life is much different now.
I still work from home. I still have my groceries delivered. I still don’t get out much.
Yet I’m happier than I’ve been in over a year, and possibly more productive than I’ve been since college.
I meet with friends and family at least once a week. I went to my first family reunion in 20 years. I rejoined my old writing group, rebooted my blog, and wrote a short story for publication. I’m working out three times a week. I attend aikido classes regularly unless I’m not feeling well, and I even took part in a weekend retreat with over 100 students from around the world. I’m working with a coach to help me make more use of my anthropology degree in my career. I’m volunteering for small nonprofits. I’m even working with a Spanish tutor twice a week.
I’m also getting counseling again and this time around, I’m actually applying the advice I get. It’s doing wonders for me.
How was I able to make all of these changes in such a short time?
You’re not going to believe this, but it started with a pandemic.
A virus called COVID-19 was initially discovered in China at the end of 2019. It quickly spread and became a global catastrophe. By mid-March, U.S. cities started mandating that people stay at home, only leave for essentials, and wear protective masks whenever they leave. As of this letter, there have been more than 20,000,000 confirmed cases (5,000,000+ in the U.S. alone) and more than 780,000 deaths (170,000+ in the U.S.).
At the same time, the economy has taken a massive hit, homelessness and unemployment are on the rise, businesses are closing permanently (even your favorite, Beachwood BBQ!), and many kids aren’t able to get a proper education.
The future is very difficult to predict: whether and how people protect themselves varies depending on where they and their political leaders stand on staying home versus going back to work and school.
I’m not trying to downplay the devastation that this pandemic has caused. But in terms of how it’s affected my day-to-day life, other than avoiding travel and having to wear a mask when I go out, the biggest difference is how I perceive my situation.
As you’re reading this, you associate staying at home with avoiding all of the things you think you should be doing.
But today, I stay at home to avoid getting myself and the people around me sick. I no longer feel guilty about staying home, and that frees me to come up with ways to make the most of my circumstances.
You avoid “meeting” with people via webcam because it doesn’t feel human enough. Now, I can see my family and friends, take classes, and make appointments as often as I want to.
You think working out at home isn’t worth it because you don’t have room for proper equipment. Now I’m getting into shape using my own body weight plus a couple of pieces of lightweight gear.
You put off getting counseling because you have a history of getting advice and not applying it. Now, the counseling I’ve received has helped my mental health recover to the point where I’m doing more than I imagined possible.
Here are some lessons I’m passing along to you:
- Give yourself permission to stay at home. You’re not hurting anyone else, so why beat yourself up? In general, if you think you have a negative behavior, try asking yourself what would happen if you just embraced it. Maybe you can use it to your advantage.
- If you want to change something about yourself, start small. Find an option with a low barrier to entry–like a webcam conversation or an at-home workout–and start there. Once you get a taste of how easy it can be to take charge of one area of your life, you’ll want to do the same for other areas. Trust me. I’ve been there.
- Get help. You can’t fix everything at once, but you know what your biggest hurdles are right now, and you need to get out of your own head.
Your friend from the future,
Brad
You’ve definitely made the most of a bad situation. You’ve become more introspective, more in tune with yourself and accepting of who you are. You do sound upbeat and happy. It’s very encouraging. Rather than looking at the gloom and doom of the present situation you’ve taken the challenge to grow and learn from it. I think we can all learn from your example.
I love these observations! I think it’s the ironic truth of this pandemic that some of us are happy, more centered, enjoying being home and not spending hours a day on the fwy, in traffic, or in a cubicle.
Hi Brad,
What an uplifting blog. It caught my attention right away with your struggle. We love hearing a success story and the advice you give is what I needed to hear right now. I like your advice about starting small and getting help. That will alleviate the overwhelming feeling of change and others always like to help. I reach out for help often. I figure, I am helping myself and giving someone else an opportunity to be useful. :-) Thanks for your post.
The world expects so much from us. Rarely do we get the opportunity to explore and learn to be ourselves. Take care it, run with it enjoy it and enjoy you!
Living with more isolation has been challenging in some ways and beneficial in others. I agree that it’s important to start small and then go from there. There are many lessons to be learned from this time in history. I am happy you have made the best of a difficult situation.
Hi Brad,
First, I want to congratulate you on the blog! Trying New Things is a great reminder about why is worthy to stay alive. See, I think that we die inside when we stop learning, and it’s amazing to see how alive you are! Second, let’s talk about this beautiful letter of resilience, perspective, and humility. Thank you for giving me the chance to navigate through your day and get to know your routine before and after the pandemic. It gave me great comfort to learn that I was not alone blaming myself for staying at home, as I also had started working remotely a bit before the stay-at-home order took place. Being at home gave me the chance to be in the shell again, to learn to listen to my own thoughts, and to reflect on things that the outside noises distracted me from. I admire your courage to admit how important it’s to ask for help. Being humble is a beautiful thing and a hard one for me. The desire to learn more and “better” it’s ridiculous and shameful I know…but also human, I think. I’m glad to see that we are aware of and able to work on these things. Overall, I just want to say thank you for writing and sharing your experiences with us.