It’s hard to know where to begin in the middle of a global pandemic. What can I say? 2020 has been one hell of a year. Time has slowed down. Time has sped up. Life has been crazy.
It’s interesting, however. I haven’t really wanted to write, and I am not sure why. If I can step back and analyze the reasons, it’s probably because we were all thrust into a marathon we didn’t want to run. Life has an element right now of just surviving. Putting one foot in front of the other, day after day. It’s not really fun. But after 9 months of this unwanted marathon, it’s time to put some observations into words.
The biggest takeaway I have is to maintain perspective. When times get tough, and they will at some point, try to keep your perspective.
The truth is it’s really easy to lose perspective in life.
Headlines can cause you to lose perspective. They are written in a way to get your attention, to illicit some sort of emotional reaction. All through this year, I have struggled with the news. Digging deeper often allowed me to regain perspective. On the other hand, at times it was best to not read anything.
Emotions are a big factor, for sure. The worst emotion is probably fear. Our fears almost never come to fruition but they can easily drive us to lose perspective. Earlier this year, we emptied our grocery store shelves. Why? No real tangible reason. Collectively, we were driven by irrational fear.
When I saw myself doing something like getting more toilet paper, or going to the grocery store at the break of dawn to stock up on food, I was suddenly doing something I had never done before in my life. It was embarrassing, frankly. My irrational fears exposed me. What the hell was I doing? Losing perspective.
Losing perspective is dangerous. Perspective is generally our reality. So when we lose perspective we are losing our grasp on reality.
Perspective can be defined as “the appearance to the eye of objects in respect to their relative distance and positions.” As human beings, we have the special proclivity to screw up our relative distance to things. We also screw up our position, thinking it more important than everyone else’s.
Several times through this pandemic, I have had to hit reset. I have had to step back and try to gain a better and fuller perspective. One way I did this was to write a long list of all the things I was grateful for. That helped a lot. Another way was to write down a plan and execute it. Staying busy and productive is huge.
Gratitude and productivity.
I certainly didn’t do it perfectly. I apologize to you for the times I lost perspective during the pandemic of 2020. You probably saw it when I lost my temper or lost my patience. I’m not proud of that, but I think I have learned through it. One day, I’m sure you will do the same.
So, if I forget to tell you, if you are going through a global pandemic, or any other negative event in your life, don’t lose perspective. But believe me, you will lose it, just be ready to gain it back.