To adapt or not to adapt
The world is rapidly changing, are you?
Do you remember those times when you were counting minutes left till the end of your math lecture in primary school? It is unfortunate, but I do and I do dearly miss those times. I used to long for being outside to play soccer yet the clock’s minute arm seemingly would not move at all. These days it is the opposite, I oftentimes wonder why does time go by us ever faster and faster.
The year of 2020 has certainly been one of a kind so far having surprised us all with the Covid-19 pandemic. I cannot believe that only two months ago I was trying to decide whether to stay in NYC, move back to San Francisco, or even move to Vietnam. Yet this past month of transitioning to a new team, working from home, and making sure everyone around me was safe has aged me a lot.
When all past assumptions and predictions fail
Crises are hard. Period. There is no way of discounting the threat posed by the pandemic to the society, economy, and individual people. Frankly I don’t fully remember the last major event that shook the foundations of the whole world — the Great Financial Crisis. At the time I was pretty much fully immersed in my high school life of socializing and doing Maths/Physics for Science Olympiads. I was shielded and careless. I was shielded by my parents who handled the uncertainty that GFC generated.
This time it is different, it is me who needs to learn to deal with the uncertainty. The uncertainty of me and my dearest staying healthy or of the job market. It is me, not my parents, who is accountable for all of my actions with real consequences. Your reaction to adversity is what truly defines you, not when everything is going up and to the right.
Embrace the change
One thing I learnt about myself a long time ago is that I am generally good at adapting myself to new situations. Things such as moving to an entirely country/continent or environment have never been scary to me. Even though they may not always have been by choice, through years I learnt to embrace them. It is the acceptance of the situation that helps me respond better and see the situation in terms of opportunities instead.
Overcoming personal inertia
Needless to say, Covid-19 crisis has been nowhere near anything I have ever seen or experienced before yet I have been relatively calm through it so far. What has helped me tje most was the rational approach to numbers provided by the media. Covid-19 is incredibly infectious that we are bound to see exponential growth in cases. Large initial day-over-day increases were expected, not surprising if you followed its growth from Chinese reports.
Having come to terms with the situation, I realized that this crisis was going to last at least a month or two. It made me wonder how I can make the best use of the scarcest of all resources — time — yet the one that we have the most at our disposal in times of Covid-19. Think about how much you can do of the things that you have always wanted? How about preparing for your next job interview? Maybe it is time to improve your personal website or build something new?
Here are a few suggestions that have been helping me stay sane so far:
- Friends and family are my top priority. Stay-at-home orders make it much harder to stay close to our dearest yet contact with them is critical to our mental health. Being an extrovert myself, I quickly embraced all the digital tools for frequent video conferencing across the globe. It is surprising how much only a handful of words can mean for someone else in times of struggle.
- I have never had the habit of working from home before. Me and my roommates had optimized our limited living space for socializing and hosting people instead. We did not even have a dining table for that we rarely cooked before. Given that it not only hurts my back to work on the couch, but having no extra screens also makes me less productive, I decided to order a standing desk optimizing for increased productivity at the expense of space.
- Nutrition is an important part of keeping our organism strong. Having never cooked regularly before, staying at home is a great incentive for learning to cook and thus staying healthy. It is not only a skill worth developing in the long term, but also provides me with a sense of accomplishment every time I taste something that I put effort into. It gives you a little victory to celebrate each day. It is actually surprisingly cheap to cook yourself every day.
- Being social is usually at odds with spending quality time at home with literature and cinematography. Who would say no to your friends organizing another gathering that you do not want to miss? Quarantine gives me a perfect opportunity to catch up on the book club and old Polish movies. I highly recommend the book I am currently reading — The Sympathizer.
- Staying physically fit and having enough outdoors exposure is a critical part of my mental well-being. I try to go on a bike ride at least once a day to release some energy along the Manhattan waterfront. It is not as safe as staying home but, in my opinion, biking offers a reasonable trade-off between limited exposure to others and being active as opposed to walking around. It is especially safe to do at night when there is no one around.
What are your solutions?
I am always looking for inspiration for improving my Covid-19 daily routine. Looking forward to hearing how everyone else is coping with the pandemic.
I hope everyone is staying safe out there.
