Just Be

When the Situation first started situating itself, and we were all, hopefully, made to stay home for a long time, I fell into the same trap many of my other Type-A counterparts fell into: Over Commitment.

Across social media were random pages admonishing us for not taking advantage of this opportunity. And I fell for it, under the idea of I have so much time now, I have to take advantage of it!

I created a daily schedule for myself, I signed up for loads of online classes, I started a new virtual project with a friend, I changed my entire diet, and I started exercising every day. I even contemplated starting my own quarantine small business.

Now, without context, those were all extremely positive changes I made for myself. I tried to balance virtual school, a virtual social life, and a virtual job hunt, all while adding these new personal commitments to my already packed schedule.

And I felt good!

For about three and a half weeks.

Then I missed one workout.

I slept in one day a few weeks into quarantine, unable to sleep the night before after watching a news report of my state hitting our first record high in deaths. I was behind schedule and had to miss my morning workout. The entire day I felt like such a useless idiot. I walked around my house, mentally berating myself for not taking advantage of the opportunity. I was letting time go to waste.

I tried to dive back into my gung-ho attitude after that, but the malaise had already sunk too deep. I was a failure. I stopped following my schedule, I didn’t do any of the classes I didn’t have to and barely focused on those, I stopped exercising and dieting.

While my regimen fell apart before my eyes and I was left with nothing to hold myself accountable, I fell deeper into a depression. My careful virtual balance went out the window. The quiet of an empty day allowed my thoughts to slip past the mental blocks I tried to fortify against them.

I now realize I was just trying to fill as much time with as many activities as possible, so I wouldn’t have any free time for my thoughts to focus too long on the world around me, politics, the pandemic, how many people had just died yesterday in my city…

My extensive goals kept me focused on the little part of the world that I had control over, and when I lost control of that too, I lost control of everything.

The commercials say we live in “unprecedented times”, and as annoying as it gets to hear that so often, it’s true.

There is no blueprint for how to mentally survive the world we live in now.

No goal will make this time better for me.

So, I don’t plan to lose weight this year, though I want to remain healthy.

I’m not starting any new projects, just doing my best on the ones I’m working on now.

I won’t take any more classes than the ones I need to graduate.

And I’m definitely not starting my own small business.

My New Year New Me Challenge for myself this year is to remain the me that I am. My goal is to just exist, just be. When quarantine first started, my mantra was, I have to take advantage of the time I have now. Now, almost a year into “unprecedented times”, I’ve shifted my attitude.

My mantra is now, The only thing I owe myself and the world is to just be.

And that's all I plan to do.