Hello strangers! Sorry for my extreme lack of posting but I’m working on a rebrand of my blog and channel and I got behind on posts and uploads between that, moving (twice), working on my dissertation, and adjusting to the end of lockdown. But I am happy to say I’m back with you and I have a new vlog on my channel which documents the move(s) and the overall adjustment!

Speaking of lockdown, restrictions are gradually being lifted here in Ireland although the post-lockdown world still feels weird and foreign. As we re-emerge into post-pandemic society, it’s led me to reflect on some of the major things I learned from three months in isolation.

Here are four things I took away from my time in quarantine:

1.          1. Productivity isn’t everything

This was a tough pill to swallow for me and everyone around me. As a graduate student who frequently overloads themselves with classes and projects, I had gotten in the habit of tying my worth to my productivity.

 I’ve talked about our collective obsession with productivity and “hustle culture” in another post, so I won’t go into it here. However, it was really important for me to realize that I could still feel worthy and successful even if I stripped back all my obligations, all my deadlines, all my eight-hour workdays. Over quarantine, having a “good” day meant having a day that felt balanced, joyful, and hopeful rather than feeling like a burnt-out, human work machine.

 This has inspired me to re-evaluate my relationship with school and how I can find other sources of validation rather than just feeling good about the amount of stuff I can get done. As we all return to work (and my deadlines are starting to loom a little more ominously), I’ve tried to carry this mindset with me. I can still feel satisfied, successful, and valid if I value balance more than productivity.

2.       2. Little interactions matter

I have no problem admitting that I am a huge introvert and I try to avoid human interaction wherever possible. I will always opt for self-checkout or some other automated android rather than have to interact with another human. I save all my interaction energy for my close friends and colleagues.

 I had no problem keeping in touch with my friends and family over FaceTime, Zoom, and whatever other virtual meeting places were available to us. However, something still seemed missing from my social life. Being unable to leave the house and only seeing the members of my household everyday left a void that I couldn't identify.

 I realized that I missed the baristas who’d take my coffee order, the librarian I’d have to ask for help finding something, all the little social interactions with strangers. I didn’t miss them because I found the small talk particularly enjoyable (I loathe small talk just as much as the next person) – I missed these interactions because they gave me a reflection of myself and my identity.

 Sometimes, I won’t even realize if I’m having a good day or a bad day until I leave my house and talk to a stranger. Just from a small interaction at a café till, I can sense what kind of energy I’m putting out that day, how I’m choosing to relate to other people around me. It gives me a kind of feedback so I can check in with myself (Jeez, I’m really chipper and excited today, what’s putting me in a better mood than usual? Or I seem really distant and disconnected, is there something else on my mind?) Little data points that give me information about myself and how I’m feeling.

 When we lost all of these interactions, I lost a lot of opportunities to check-in with myself and inform my sense of self throughout the day. It made me feel – lost. Once I realized this, it was a lot easier to make that time to check-in with myself but it also gave me a new appreciation for the little human interactions that used to seem “meaningless”.

3.        3. Health is everything – physical and mental

Productivity might not be everything, but health is. I’ve often said ‘if you don’t have your physical and mental health, you have nothing’ because literally, you’d be dead.

 That has never been so apparent as it was during a global pandemic. In my day-to-day life, I can often slack on taking care of my health because it doesn’t seem like an immediate concern. Skipping one dose of my inhaler didn’t seem like it’d be a big deal. I didn’t need to take a mental health day even though I was anxious and tired because I just needed to push through one more week – which inevitably turned into two more weeks, another month, and another.

Taking care of ourselves is something we too easily put on the backburner even though it is more critical to our survival than any task, any appointment, any obligation. As soon as we went into lockdown, I realized how anxious I had been feeling, how tired and burnt-out and sluggish and run-down. I knew I needed to take a break to relax, find a doctor, find a psychotherapist, start eating better, and start taking care of myself. The shocking this is, if a global pandemic hadn’t forced us to lock ourselves indoors for a while, I don’t think I would have ever taken the initiative to take that break. Even though it was crucial to maintaining my health.

It may have taken a global physical and mental health crisis to get me to prioritize my own health, but at least I got there in the end. Now, I will hopefully feel less reluctant to take time out to work on my own health, because my health is all I got!

4       4. Time spent alone isn’t time wasted

I know a lot of people started saying “2020 is cancelled” or “let’s pretend like 2020 didn’t happen” as if this whole year is a designated write-off. I don’t like thinking that way. Sure, it’s tempting – I didn’t get to travel much this year, didn’t get to see as many of my friends, didn’t get to go to all the concerts I wanted, likely won’t be able to go home to America for a  long time – but just because I spent this time alone, at home doesn’t mean it’s wasted.

 The three months we spent locked away gave me a lot of time to introspect and to evaluate, which I needed. I now have a clearer picture of what I want in the future, what things I want to prioritize, what kind of stuff I really enjoy and want more of in my life and what I had been doing just for the sake of keeping busy.

 That’s a valuable use of my time in and of itself, but you know what? I also had a lot of fun in lockdown. I baked so many new things (like this Guinness bread). I learned how to make cocktails. I got to go to beach more frequently than any other summer before (vlog here). I may not have gone to festivals or parties or traveled to a new country, but I still had a lot of fun and it doesn’t feel like I wasted my summer.

Of course, I could go on forever about all the stuff I learned about myself in quarantine, all the self-help books I read, and all the rest but these four things have been some of the more interesting revelations. Please comment below and share what you learned – about yourself, about the world, about social justice, about Tiger King – whatever!