7-Months-Into-Pandemic Life Exploration
What 7 months of pandemic is teaching me
Recently, I am reminded once again about a few life lessons. That is after I went through quite a crisis in my life. There were days I feel suffocated in my thoughts. It’s as if all doors close and I feel like a hamster running on a wheel — going nowhere.
I saw how people around me are coping greatly with life. They are paying their bills, feeding their family, earning quite a lot, starting their own business, and affording to travel and have a holiday trip with their own income. I started to feel small because I’m far from all that. All this time, I thought by 24 I’d earn money and be able to wire some to my parents. In reality, I’m stuck paying my bills, living from paycheck to paycheck. I feel small, really.
I deliberately find time to reflect upon my life. During that time, I try to break through those thick walls in me and stare right through myself. These are a few things I reminded myself with, again.
1. Comparison is not supposed to be done towards other people.
It is supposed to be done towards your own self. I realize where all these suffocation is coming from: an unrealistic comparison. Why am I even trying to compare myself to someone whose path, goal, and skill set is completely different from mine? It is not even comparable, to begin with. I am starting to remind myself to compare my present self to my past self; how I’ve developed, grew, and evolved. Comparing your present self to your old self should be the only thing that matters.
2. Everything happens at its own great timing.
Often, I feel life is unfair as the thing I’m expecting has yet to come. For whatever reason, sometimes I feel like life is fooling me. It feels like I’m about to get there, but then I realize there’s still so many things to do. Rather than waiting for the expected thing to come and put my being focus on the future, I learn that it’s best to be present in the present. Only by doing that will I be able to open doors. Because I realize the doors that I have to open are not located in the distant future, but now.
3. You are who you surround yourself with.
Look around. Are you surrounded by people who are passionate about their vision and know what they are doing? I spend a week with the right friends and I got so many things done in life much more than when I spend a month with other friends. It’s really important to know and realize that who you surround yourself with most of the time, will build you. I believe that you exchange energy with the people you are close with. You giving them energy, and they giving you energy. What kind of energy you’re getting depends on what kind of energy your counterpart oozes.
I know these lessons are not new, but these two-weeks reflections bear these three lessons I never knew I needed. I hope it speaks to you as much as it speaks to me.
