The pandemic taught me so many different things about life… here are a few:
1. Have empathy
– The first and foremost thing that I learned this pandemic season is to have empathy. Living with your family members all day every day is fun and an amazing bonding opportunity, but each of us has our separate lives and our jobs. Learning to accept that and be understanding of the fact that sometimes I am not the reason that someone could be frustrated definitely took time.
2. Live in the moment
– A couple of years ago, I heard the saying “Cut the past, shut the future, live in the present”, but at that time, I didn’t understand what it meant. I thought, “Why would I want to forget the past and not think about the future”. But now, during the pandemic, I learned the true meaning of it. I used to spend so much time during the early months of the pandemic just wondering when everything will end and when I will get my normal life back. The more I thought about this, the more I felt worse about the whole situation. Then I realized the meaning of that saying. The future will take care of itself. I can’t change it. The only thing that is in my hands is what I can do now, so just live in the present and make the best of every moment that I have.
3. Be thankful for every small thing
– Before the pandemic, I was still thankful for the small things, but I never really realized the true value of them until after the pandemic. Once the pandemic began, I read more and more on the news about people losing their jobs, filing from unemployment, so many people losing loved ones, and so much more. That made me really realize what I have and how important all of that is.
4. Be positive
As mentioned in a previous post about positivity, there is a bright side to everything and looking at that bright side helps motivate me to keep moving. I learned that being positive, though it might not solve the problem directly, will definitely help solve the problem, no matter what it is. Instead of looking at how far I still had to go, I looked at the positive side, how far I came, and it kept pushing me to go farther.
5. Accept things the way they come and shape your life around it
– The pandemic is something that is entirely out of our control. Nothing about it is really in our hands except for making sure that we are safe. When the pandemic first began, I used to hate the way that life turned around and the changes that it brought, but as I mentioned before, it’s not in my hands, I can’t change it. I realized that there is no point in wasting my mind space thinking about the negative aspects of this pandemic. I learned to shape my life around the challenges and obstacles that this pandemic brought. For example, when the pandemic first began, I didn’t work out much and focus on my physical health which caused me to gain weight. A couple of months in, I thought “When the pandemic ends in the summer, I’ll go to our neighborhood gym every day and work out”. But that didn’t happen since the pandemic was still there and cases were still rising. I learned to shape my fitness around the pandemic instead of trying and waiting for something that is out of my control to go as per my wants. I started to do at home fitness and do things that I could do such as going for a run or doing strength workouts at home.
Akshara Akella 