With everything happening in the world it is so hard to not talk about it. It is all-consuming, on our minds, something that we can not escape from. I was on a Zoom call with my best friends. I was so excited to talk to them because we have not talked in weeks. We do an occasional Snapchat here and there, but before this, we all lived together so we saw each other every day. On this zoom call, we did spend some time talking about things that we have been doing, chatting about the television shows that we are all watching, but the majority of the time was spent talking about the coronavirus and I was so disappointed. This is the one time we talk a week a majority of it was spent talking about this. I hear about it every day, it is all over my social media platforms. I know how serious it is, I know that it is going to shape our world. Why is it that when something negative happens in our life it is all-consuming? How come that is what we spend so much time focused on? Why do we give the negative so much of our time and energy? I am alert with what is going on and I think that it is so important for us to do our part to stop the spread of the virus. I am alert and I know that it is important to be as up to date and help out as much as possible.
I told myself during this quarantine that I was not going to write about the coronavirus whatsoever. People do not want to read about that, THAT IS ALL THEY ARE READING ABOUT. So the rest of this will no longer be about the coronavirus. It will be about perspective.
In a weird way, that past few weeks I have been the happiest that I have been in a long time. Before this, I found myself constantly worried about everything. I was on the summer internship hunt, constantly applying and my heart breaking every time I got a rejection letter. I was spreading myself super thin because I feared I was not doing enough to stand out. Every time someone asked me how I was I would say stressed. I felt that life was going so fast and I was trying to be the best in every way that I can. That has not stopped during this time, it has continued in new ways.
Everyone keeps asking me how I am doing and I feel weird answering because it feels not appropriate to say really happy and content. What I have learned during this time is that life is all about perspective. You are either a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person. Before this, I was for sure a glass half empty. I have struggled with a lot of anxiety and self-doubt. If something bad happened in my life I spent so much time focusing on the negative. I also am a very critical person, I like to nitpick everything and constantly strive for perfection in everyone, especially in myself, and in everything. Do not get me wrong, I still was an extremely hard worker. I would have taken a situation like this and be wondering every day when life is going to be back to normal, constantly talking about what is happening, as if talking and stressing about it was going to fix it.
Lately, I have been a glass half full type of girl. Trust me both my mom and I are astounded by how positive I have been. I even pinch myself to make sure this is really me. Over the past few weeks, I have done almost everything that I have ever wanted to do. Everything that I said if I had time to do it I would do this. Here is my thought as maybe a little harsh as it may be. If you aren’t doing all the things that you said you would do if you had enough time, did you ever really want to do them? Our culture teaches us to complain about things we want and the things we want to try, but we are not taught the motivation and self-discipline to actually do it. That is my motivation for each day. I have no reason to complain about not having time for this ever again because here is time literally staring me in the face. I have been so busy trying new things I have not even watched Tiger King. You see we as a society spend so much time consuming and focusing on the negative, complaining about wanting something and not putting in the effort to do it. Yes, this is a weird time, but there have been so many weird times before and every time people have gotten through it. That is the perspective that I look at this situation as. A weird time, the first one that I have personally lived through, but not the first one to ever exist. See the glass half full. Of course, there are days when I feel like I have bonded with my parents more than I ever should, but also life is short and I have laughed more with my family more than ever. I have been able to really take time for myself and learn about myself in new ways. This time is happening whether we like it or not, so what perspective are you going to look at it from?