Don't get yourself stressed out.
We are now officially in the age of coronavirus. Yes, with coronavirus news and media bombarding our head every hour 7/24, we are, more than ever, addicted to this immensely stressful and sad topic. Opening up your favorite news app, coronavirus news updates for every country occupies every section of the news. For sure, this pandemic will pass one day, before that happens, we must learn to live with grace during this extraordinary time without buying into the mass panic that we created for ourselves.
Perhaps it is time that we think about things that we were too busy to think about, interests we have but were to unable to fulfill for whatever reason. Perhaps it is about time to spend more time with loved ones but we couldn't in the past. There are many things that we missed out in the past, and we gave ourselves plenty of excuses, and now we have plenty of time.
Focus on your spiritual need
We seldom realize our own spiritual needs. Many of us don't even bother to learn about it until the end-of-life kind of life lesson bestowed to ourselves. With communal lockdown becomes inevitable, the moment we spend time alone in our private space will inevitably lead us to questions about our belief, faith, and meaning in life. Instead of browsing through the internet with endless discussion of politics and money, it is a good time that we talk to our inner self and have a frank conversation on what we believe. We are not slaves to other opinions, what we believe in life matters most.
Spare time for internet free activities
Whether it is a smartphone, laptop, or desktop, it is easy to pick up and spend another 15 mins browsing the same content over and over again.
Spend too much time on a computer screen will put more stress on you. The display radiates high color temperature light that stimulates more brain activities. Instead of getting a night of restful sleep, you will find yourself struggling in bed with negative thoughts looping in your mind. It is a living hell we all experienced during a time like this. Anxiety is all we get from excessive media consumption.
Read a book
Reading can turn you into a beautiful and creative person. Its benefits include calm oneself, nourishing one mind, enlightening heart, improving memory, the list goes on and on...
Learning new skill
With ourselves confining to our space for an extended period, many outdoor activities become a thing of the past. However, it shouldn't stop us from gaining new skills or interests or improve our body shape. Find a new way to workout, cooking new recipes, learn to code, start a webpage, there are many choices. Things that we can't learn in the past, now we can master it. Organizing your day with discipline, you will soon reap the benefits.
Meditation
We all will experience life and death in this pandemic, how do we cope with all these saddening feeling? Working out our way past these emotional experiences is very heavy. It is why I strongly suggest you will spare time for meditation every day. Meditation can help you cope with reality, accept facts, and reduce anxiety. It also helps to tone down the depression and negative thoughts that manifested during this pandemic.
Plan ahead, carve out a post-pandemic plan
Feeling dreaded with this pandemic? Don't be. This thing will get better, and very soon, life will resume normal. As we witness this coronavirus pandemic live on TV and on the internet, we cannot help but resign to our own fate. When we look back to life events, how many times we realized that things did improve afterward. We can gain clarity in life events such as this pandemic by putting things into perspective, after all, a few months lockdown in the endless flow of time may benefit human civilization as a whole. It is always beneficial that if we can lay out a plan for our career, personal growth, or family matter a step ahead. Setting a goal is an excellent way to initialize this plan.
Believe in yourself, be passionate
In this pandemic, we lost control over the significant part of our life, our routine, our job security, financial security, our health, our relationship, all taking toll as coronavirus ravages our community. This pandemic put our faith into a test, it challenges our norms, it challenges our belief.
So whatever we believe in, we should always be passionate about ourselves, and with others. It is because this passion will translate into action, and action will turn into a results. I hope this essay will be able to provide some comfort to you.
Stephen Chen
Founder of ONELIVINGS