I choose joy. Honestly, if you’re anything like me you’ll agree that the past couple of years have put us all through the ringer. For me personally, the pandemic hit the ground running during my senior year of high school. Then, it obviously has continued to challenge me and those around me ever since. I never thought that my life would be affected in this way and especially not by a worldwide pandemic. Even though when the pandemic first began I believed that nothing could get worse, and I guess I forgot to knock on wood because everything good that I seemed to have going on almost immediately seemed to disappear. Let’s also not forget that the coronavirus first appeared in 2019, let me say that again, 2019. It is now 2021, and within a month’s time it will be 2022, and the pandemic is still severely affecting our daily lives.
I honestly feel like I haven’t caught a break since 2019. I also went through what I thought at the time to be an earth-shattering breakup this year in May. So as a recap, COVID hit, I finished high school via Zoom, I moved to college and left my dorm room maybe once a day due to the fact that all of my classes were online, then got my heart stomped on. That’s quite a lot of learning experiences back-to-back if you’d ask me. However, if I could cumulatively gather one piece of advice I’ve learned over the past couple of years, it would be to always look for a silver lining.
A silver lining is a good outcome or result, no matter what the event that took place was. For example, I went through a gut-wrenching breakup, and my silver lining is the fact that now I know I wasn’t in a relationship with the right person for me. A silver lining for the pandemic is now we know how easily viruses and other illnesses can be spread, but we also know how influential it is to be proactive in public health. Finding your silver linings also comes with the process of being able to accept things as they are, and to protect your own peace.
At this time last year, I struggled and tried to control every single aspect of my personal life and relationships. I also have a raging Anxiety Disorder that I didn’t know how to manage as well as I do now. Honestly, by stressing so much about everything, every single second of the day I made myself completely and utterly disheartened about my future and I got scared by how I thought everyday events would pan out. Recently I’ve been working on accepting outcomes as they are, and letting people show me who they truly are without stressing myself out about it. I’m also a firm believer in the saying “Whatever will be, will be.” I mean, it’s true. There is no possible way that you or I, as individuals, can stop particular events from occurring or reroute their outcomes. So acceptance is the best ritual to practice.
Silver linings and acceptance have saved me a lot of late-night worry, and they’ve also just made me happier as a person. I’m able to let things go now, and not obsess over them. It’s also more pragmatic to practice optimism, as you can’t possibly be happy when you think negatively about yourself, others or the world all the time. You can protect your happiness and your peace by being at peace with life and the events that occur during it. Life is too short to be stuck in a hateful spiral, so enjoy the beauty in the small things.