Anastasiya Lazarevich

If not now, then when?

Jul 14, 2020 4 years ago

It would be a huge lie to say that there is a person on Earth whose life was not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. To greater or lesser extent everyone's lives were divided into “before” and “after”. Of course, each of us will draw own lessons and own conclusions. But, since there is already enough sad and devastating things happened on Earth these days, I would like to concentrate on more positive things in my story. I would like to start with the fact that before the global lockdown my life could not be called any unusual or extraordinary. Like many of my peers, I went to university, worked out in the gym – you can me “generic” if you want. For me being at home is one of the best ways to spend time. I see nothing wrong with staying at home instead of going to the cinema and reading a book or watching the same movie while lying on the couch. So, I can't say that after the announcement of restrictions on attending events and everything else, my life rotated 180 degrees. “Loneliness” in this case gives you a lot of time and space to think, and sometimes you find your train of thoughts in the most unexpected place. And I found mine here, reflecting on what's changed in my life during the lockdown. Being all by myself allowed me to learn and rethink some things in my life. Here are some of them: 1. Cooking. Frankly, kitchen was the last place where I expected to find myself. But as it turned out, I'm not completely hopeless at cooking, and sometimes it's even very exciting to cook, especially if you set some goal, like, to treat yourself or your close ones. It can be anything, really. For me, it was about switching to more healthy food and simple recipes. 2. Languages. The pandemic allowed me to register for the Finnish language course, which I had wanted to study for a long time. The course, by the way, turned out to be very informative and contains many additional resources to continue learning the language. So, I hope to stick to my routine of learning Finnish as long as I can understand a word 😊 3. New training routines. Working out is what keeps me sane during my whole life. Therefore, when trainings at the stadium were canceled, I had to look for a replacement in order to keep my body ready for future competitions. As a result, I concentrated on basic exercises and techniques, and also included exercises to strengthen my weaknesses, for example, footwork, which is essential in order to increase your strength, and maximize your performance. Now I understand more about how my body should work during the run. 4. Planning. Of course, when you build huge plans in your head about how to spend the time during the pandemic as productively as possible, there will always be a confusion about their implementation of you lack time-management skills. Planning comes to the rescue here. As it turned out, all these nice little books can really help in the proper preparation of your schedule, and not just collect dust on your desk. 5. Last but not least is my realization that the thought expressed on paper sometimes helps to clear and reload my head. Therefore, for me, writing this post is a kind of catharsis, through the text I can see a retrospective and, having put on it the existing knowledge, draw the right conclusions in order to make my life better. I am in no way saying that this is the only true way, no. But it really worked for me. Keeping journals or diaries is like a therapy session in my case. If you are afraid to share your thoughts with someone else or can't talk about such things without being accused of whining, I suppose, this'll work for you, too. So, what I want to say is that, in the end of the day, I would like to see the people in the world being happy rather than depressed all the time. Therefore, it is so important and necessary to look for positive aspects in any situation, because in the end you are the sum of choices made in your whole life. And it is very short to spend it on doubts, suffering and distress over the fact that you did not try something or did not learn. Therefore, it is not so important that my experience cannot be fully applied to others, because this is a normal process, since we are all unique. The most important thing is to think about whether you are really happy with how your life goes. Because now is the high time to do it.

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