It’s been 4 1/2 months now. We have been through most, if not all, of the states of grief over the loss of life as we knew it.
Denial – no wayyy.
Anger – WTF?
Bargaining – Can we just go out for a little bit? We promise not to cough, sneeze, shake hands or breathe deeply.
Depression – Oh God why hast thou forsaken us????
Acceptance – I’m going to the store. Wallet, check. Keys, check. Glasses, check. Phone, check. Mask, check. Sanitizer, check. Wipes, check. Gloves, check. Prayed up, check.
So what now?
I had an interesting conversation with my teen daughter yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised at what she said. We were talking about COVID19 and what people are doing with their newfound downtime. Some people haven’t had a big change in their schedules, but I think most of us are really feeling it. We have wayyyy more time on our hands than we used to. So I was happy to hear her not complaining about it, but in fact welcoming the change as an opportunity to CHANGE. She went so far as to say “if you come out of this without having a new skill or bettering yourself in some way, then you’re just a loser”. Wow. Hey, she said it – not me. LOL! But I will admit, I did agree with her.
I mean unless your whole life is exactly the way you want it, and you have no room for improvement, then you should be working on something. Don’t you think? Now if your life is in every way just as you want it, then you know I’m not talking to you. If you have no complaints, that is just awesome. I’ll be the first one to say I’m happy for you. But if your social life, work life, home life, finances, personal relationships, spirituality, health, and/or your overall satisfaction with who you are and what you do for your life’s work is not what you want it to be, then you should probably be doing something about that while you have the time. If you are, that’s awesome. Tell us about it in the comments below. Be an inspiration to someone. Quite often someone wants to make a change but just has no idea what to do. Maybe you can share your experience and motivate or bring clarity to them, and that’s highly valuable.
But if you’re that person who doesn’t know where to start, then just start with a list.
What is the number one thing you wish you could change in your life? Write it down and go from there. List the things you would like to change, from the one you feel most intensely about, to the one you could continue to live with if you had to. Once you’ve got your list, create a plan to work on the one that is bothering you the most. Sometimes circumstances don’t allow you to immediately change something. But you could actually work on the way you feel about it. You might be surprised how powerful even that change can be.
This can be an especially emotional time for some of us. Finances, relationships, health and more are being impacted. Sometimes we might feel totally out of control. My hope is that we all figure out how to get something good out of it, and I mean more than catching up on whatever we missed on Netflix last season. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
