What if there’s no “back to normal”? What if this is normal? As the governor of Texas, my home state, begins to open up doors today, I have seen many businesses speak up and say: no. We care about people, and we’re not opening up just yet. Because this pandemic: no one knows what’s to come. So, no. We’ll stay closed for a bit longer. Amen to them, and to that. That is not an easy decision to make.
Let’s talk about this new normal. You might be out of a job, or with less hours, or your favorite restaurant might officially close its doors. Community – as we once knew it – might now always be a socially distanced community.
I get the destruction and the financial collapse and the death and the disease. I get that many have lost loved ones way too soon.
I’m choosing not to focus on that part, not today.
Let’s reflect for a sec: what if this is our opportunity to take a step back, to get creative, to come up with something new?
What if this taught people how to love their homes – how to effectively live and work in their environments? How to strive for happiness with what they have and not what their neighbor has?
What if it is teaching us how to say no? How to sit back and be with family? How to stop the FOMO? How to refocus our energies in this digital world? How to reframe our businesses so we can work effectively within this new normal?
What if this time has allowed us to zone in and find our true path, our dharma?
Run with that.
These are words coming from someone who can work from home. Who has built a business around working from anywhere. My preferred anywhere is right here at home.
So this is easy for me to say. I get that.
This is also from someone who, not that long ago, had FOMO. Had ego-driven decisions. Taught all the yoga classes – up to 14 a week – because I wanted to be #1. Because I couldn’t stand the thought of someone taking over my class and doing it better.
From someone who has been insistent that my senior living marketing company is the best senior living marketing company, ever. That no one is better.
Yep.
So this time of reflection: it’s made me think: what the hell have I been thinking? Why do I even care? Why do I fight and work so hard climbing up that imaginary hill day in and day out when truly – none of this fight really matters.
So I’ve taken this pandemic and I’ve thought a lot. What’s my new normal going to be? What will my business look like? What will my yoga teachings look like? What will this blog become? Who will I become?
What if I’m not the best? What if someone else gets to stand up and take the reign? Would that be so bad?
Can I make my new life a little easier?
Now, your turn: can you take steps to make it easy for you, too?
What if we are all making this harder than it needs to be?
Is that ignorance talking? Is that glass half full bullshit? It might be. You’re welcome to think so, and to say so.
It might also be that we must learn to adapt. We must learn to take what we’ve accomplished, what’s behind us, and look ahead. Gracefully. Slowly. Deliberately. As this new community. We must get over the FOMO or the life as we once knew it. We must learn to embrace these moments of stillness and these moments of boredom and mesh them in with our new lives.
What if we’ve all been wrong?
What if – in our building of cities and of monuments and of planning for war – and building our empires and collecting all the things – what if what was really needed all along was tuning into the sense of quiet? Of contemplation? Of tuning out the world and tuning into ways to simply be?
What if this pandemic was needed to shake us all up out of our shitty, fruitless, meandering, FOMO, copying the Joneses, routine?
I get it. Those are bold words. Maybe ignorant words.
Maybe necessary words.
What will your new normal look like? How will you choose to move forward in your days?
Love, Jen.