How Covid Created Possibilities for Those Who Embraced Them

Covid’s silver lining:

Covid-19 has been devastating for many. Whether from the loss of health, of loved ones, of jobs and businesses, of homes, or of finances, people have been suffering tremendously. We can’t underestimate the toll the pandemic has taken on our emotional and physical wellbeing. Still, in some ways, there’s a silver lining to the pandemic. It’s nothing I could have expected, but a year into lockdown, it’s something that I’m appreciating very much.

For some people, the isolation, all the free time, and the vast amount of quiet have created remarkable opportunities for growth, learning and creativity. We’re getting a whole lot accomplished and we’re feeling more fulfilled than ever.

Many of us, when confronted with an almost total lack of social and recreational activities, have been forced to rethink our leisure time. Many people have redecorated their homes, taken the opportunity to do a purge of many years of accumulated clutter, or they’ve taught themselves new skills, like playing an instrument, baking bread or doing specialized cooking.

I went online and learned how to make my favorite Indian dishes that I used to order from the neighbourhood delivery place. Interestingly, I’m enjoying my own Aloo Gobi and Sag Paneer even more than the restaurant versions, because I’ve tailored the dishes to my own personal tastes.

Many people have been catching up with their reading during the pandemic. I’ve read the entire oeuvre of Louise Penney and now I’m working through that of Donna Leon, with some more serious literary novels mixed in-between. It’s been a pleasure, getting to read so much and on such a regular basis.

The opportunity for creativity:

A lot of people have had uninterrupted time in which to focus on their creativity. I started a writing class about a month before the first lockdown, and very quickly, the class switched to online. Since then, I’ve done two more terms of writing class plus a private mentorship, and so far I’ve finished a working draft of book one of my YA dystopian trilogy, and I’m two hundred pages into book two.

One of my struggles with writing had always been the challenge of spending so much time alone with my manuscript while everyone else was off, having a good time. There’s been no FOMO to trouble me these days, as there is literally, nothing to miss out on.

Also, compared to all the suffering going on around me, any petty fears or blocks I may have had around my writing have been rendered utterly absurd during the pandemic. The result is that  I’m now able to just do the work.

The pandemic has helped many of us reorder our priorities. Several people I know have retired or changed careers. People have been re-thinking their lives and opting to do what they’ve been dreaming about sooner, rather than later.

With so much death in the air, we’re much less willing to waste our time doing things that don’t bring us joy and fulfillment. These days, many of us are much less interested in the superficial and much more interested in the meaningful, and that’s got to be a good thing.

More meaningful relationships:

Many people have been forming deeper commitments to their romantic partners, and many have finally walked away from unhappy relationships. Again, the particular circumstances of the pandemic are helping them to acknowledge what they want and what they can no longer tolerate.

I’m hearing a lot of people saying that the pandemic has also helped to clarify who their real friends are, because when there are no activities to distract them and the relationships are now simply about talking to one-another, it doesn’t take much to see who has been spending time with us because it’s been convenient or amusing, and who has been doing so because they actually care about us.

The silver lining of Covid-19 is that the social isolation, the lack of distractions and the increased time on our hands is providing many of us with opportunities to learn things we couldn’t have learned without it.

We’ve had an opportunity to clarify our priorities and to clear out a lot of emotional, physical and even human clutter. I’ve realized that there are some activities I won’t be returning to, once things are back to “normal,” because they now feel like a waste of my time.

A lot of people have been bored during the pandemic, because they’re busy missing the things they used to do, rather than imagining new things that they’d like to do.

Being flexible and adaptable has been an essential survival skill during the pandemic and for those who’ve been able to go with the flow, we’ve taken up new habits and new activities that are likely to last us a lifetime.

I started walking in the summer and it’s become an almost daily habit. Each day, after my hour-long walk I return home in a terrific mood. I’ve always hated the snow and the cold, and yet, this winter I’ve gone out walking, even when the snow was falling horizontally.

Focusing on what really matters:

For me, one silver lining of the pandemic is that with all the death around us, I’ve become a lot more focused on my own mortality, but not in a morbid way. Rather, I’ve been clarifying what I want to accomplish with whatever amount of time I’ve got left in my life.

I realized that more than anything, I want to write fiction, and I’m going to make that my priority in the coming months and years.

I’m sad for the people who have lost so much during the pandemic. I do my part by seeing my patients for psychotherapy and doing psychiatric assessments, online, and I admire all the people who spend their days serving the community in their own way.

Even as I grieve the losses we’ve all experienced, I celebrate the opportunity that the lockdown has brought to me and to so many others. Even during the pandemic, resilience still means making lemonade out of the lemons we were given. For me, and for many of the people that I know, the lemonade has been pretty delicious.

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