Today I’ve struggled more than I’ve thought I would to write a blog post because I wanted to write about something that isn’t just about Covid-19 and everything that it’s changed in all of our lives. Part of me keeps coming back every day, every week, wondering “what’s going on in the world” knowing and disliking what the answers all tie back to.
Because one way or another, there really isn’t a way for me to write this without bringing it back to the pandemic. As much as I don’t want to talk about it, that isn’t really an option. And I could talk about why that isn’t an option, but I’m honestly more interested in why I don’t want to talk about it.
And why maybe you might not want to either. Or maybe you do.
There are certain things we wake up knowing every single day—the sun is going to rise, it’s going to fall, time will keep going, the world will keep changing, and life will keep moving. One way or another, and with or without us, these things will happen again and again.
Right now, the question we’re wondering about isn’t if they will happen, but rather how they will happen and change as we move forward. And the uncertainty of the answer is something I’m not particularly fond of facing. Sure, some of it can be exciting. But a lot of it brings me a whole lot of anxiety that I don’t like.
Let’s take the sun rising and falling every day for example. That’s still something that’s going to happen, but whether or not some of you see it on a morning commute, a run, taking the kids to school, etc. might change. Maybe you’ll be working from home more often or school will become partially online; it’s even possible that your morning run will become an afternoon run because you’ll fill your mornings with a different variable you didn’t account for originally.
Like I said. Certain things will still happen. But how they happen, or more specifically how we experience them happening may change drastically.
That’s part of what has me so uncertain. Because just about everything around us is up in the air. Even as I graduate soon, some people are off to grad school, law school, peace corps, new jobs, etc. and I’m wondering what it will all look like in the aftermath of each of these changes. For many people who are starting down new paths like jobs or big moves in times like this one, we find ourselves restructuring.
After all, I don’t think any of us incorporated a global pandemic into our 5/10-year plans when asked what we wanted our lives to look like.
But we’re not completely lost either.
The thing about where we’re at right now is that there isn’t necessarily anyone “winning” here. While this isn’t a good thing, it also means that people are more willing to help one another out. Sure, things are much more uncertain, and I keep wondering whether or not finding a job will be even harder now than ever, but that doesn’t have to be the case.
I’m sure you’ve seen commercials or even heard of companies making big changes to the way they’re making loans or billing people right now, due to the understanding of layoffs or cut hours and illness or losses in the midst of the pandemic. People are making an effort to meet each other in the middle. When it comes to the job market, education, and so much more, other entities are starting to follow suit.
Educationally, I’ve noticed a lot of K-12 educators making a tremendous effort to help their students and support them. Depending on the college and professor, some higher education systems are doing the same. As for the job market, there are a lot of areas where things are not looking great and at a certain point there is little we can do.
But the networking, the connection, and the communication, through each of these areas we do have access to so much of what we need in order to not be rendered helpless either. Though not at all the same, remote internships are possible in the same way that remote learning is possible. Though this affects morale and motivation just as much as it affects timelines and productivity, it doesn’t have to stop us completely if we don’t want it to.
Even when things are feeling so out of control, that doesn’t mean they are. Because in the beginning of this post, I said that I wasn’t sure what to talk about because it all comes back to Covid-19. And it does, that hasn’t changed.
It’s just that, even if we don’t want to talk about the thing we’re unsure, worried, scared, nervous, weary, tired, or even worn out about, that doesn’t mean it’s going away. One way or another, life and time will move forward. Our world will keep turning. And though there are a lot of things out of our control, there are places where we can still make small efforts that contribute to the whole of what our lives look like when we come out the other side of this.
Even if that’s just to take a moment today to say what’s on your mind. Maybe some of you are exhausted from homeschooling or Zoom University has given you migraines on top of migraines all week. Maybe you’re missing school friends or days outside in nice weather. Maybe you’re missing the routine of people moving around you on your daily commute to work or the walk you got so you to just to get to wherever you need to go. Whatever it is, wherever you’re at today, that’s fine.
Such is the status quo of this Friday. Let’s just take it as it comes, I know that’s all I’m doing. So I’ll see you next week, and in the meantime, who knows what will change. All I know is that we will change along with it.
Happy Friday everyone.
kwilliamsbooks 