Be Kind To Yourself During The Quarantine

You don’t have to come out with a six-pack, three side hustles, and a newfound zen-self.

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

As the cheesy song from High School Musical goes ‘we are all in this together, blah blah blah, blah blah, blah, blah blah blaaaah’ or so I remember it (and I bet you sang it, didn’t you?). Jokes aside, you are probably under quarantine, just like me and a million other people around the world. We are really, all in this together.

And yes, we have all been bombarded with four things on the Media these days:

Videos on how to wash our hands properly. Because clearly, we’ve all been doing it wrong all along. Figures and numbers to increase our already high anxiety about the number of confirmed cases and deaths due to the virus. Videos of people doing awesome and crazy creative stuff in order to think of something else besides how annoying their families are.

And lastly,

4. How to make the quarantine the most productive time of our lives.

Now, a lot could be said about points 1 to 3. Or 1, 2, 3, if you wish. But, I’ll just say that it is of utter importance that you do learn how to wash your hands properly once and for all, Susan. Otherwise, I’m not trusting you with my sandwiches ever again.

However, we’ll focus on point numero cuatro in here.

Yes, I am all about self-help. I like both writing and desperately reading it whilst crying, eating a tub of ice-cream and shouting ‘Yes, I’m such a type A, Karen!’. Nonetheless, there’s a lot to say about having kindness and compassion towards ourselves.

Sure, read all the articles you want telling you how to have extra side hustles, and how to publish your book in 30 days. And definitely read those that tell you how to exercise for 1 hour, teach your kids 8 hours worth of school content, make an amazing new recipe with only beans, toast, pasta, and rice (and of course Heinz Ketchup, duh), run your side hustles like a BOSS, meditate for ten minutes, go out for a run, create a life map with a mind map, rearrange you house so it’s more feng shui, have wonderful sex using Lysol as lube (cause #safesex), Skype your parents and BFF, and read all the news to be up-to-date with the world. Oh, and don’t forget to journal how you managed to do all of that in one day.

But, put some perspective and be realistic.

Maybe on Monday you had the kicking energy of 30 cups of coffee and managed to actually do all that except maybe the wonderful sex because you found out that Lysol actually burns. Maybe on Tuesday, you were a bit more tired, and your BFF (total #bestie4eva) recommended a new show on Netflix, and you were on your PJ’s watching it all day. And on Wednesday you worked on your side hustles like a B-O-S-S, but forgot about your kids and just left them to watch some cool V Sauce videos on youtube.

You’ll probably feel bad about Tuesday and Wednesday, and the huge pizza you had on Thursday. But, you have to be realistic, and kind, and compassionate.

Things are changing. We are in a special moment in history in which we are saving the world by staying in our PJ’s and watching Netflix all day. (Guess our grandpas don’t think life is very fair, uh?).

So, RELAX.

If you managed to do a 7-min workout be happy, but don’t kick yourself in the arse if you didn’t. Unless you kick yourself for seven minutes, then you’ll be killing two birds with a stone, I guess.

So you do YOU. Do what YOU can, and what YOU want. And don’t let outside pressures pressure you into thinking you should be a hero, a nerd, and an athlete during these times.

Read the articles, and the books, watch your friends, but do what you can and want, and don’t be hard on yourself.

To summarize,

Just.

Stay.

The.

F%ck.

Home.

And be happy and kind, and whatnot.

Photo by Anastasiia Chepinska on Unsplash

Stay Home, Stay Safe