How To Find Hope Amidst The Crisis

The biggest threat is not the coronavirus itself, or the economy fallback — it’s the loss of a sense of purpose.

Photo by Joshua Reddekopp on Unsplash

As Boris Johnson made lockdown in the UK official, I can’t help but try to make sense of it all.

I am a generation born in the Internet era — people like me don’t know the world without connectivity. And yet, even I am not used to changes at this speed.

Every single day I wake up, and it’s a whole other world. It has different rules, and I need a different “map” to understand my role in it.

One part of me keeps thinking: “Why should I care?”

My girlfriend and I decided early on that self-isolation is essential, not for us — but everybody else. We don’t care much if we get sick (but we’re not trying to). We care about not spreading the virus too much and not being selfish.

Plus, I’ve been working from home pretty much my entire life (except for one year of office slavery when I was 19), so for me, nothing changed.

I was brought up in post-Soviet Russia, witnessed my father build (from scratch), and lose (completely) three businesses. I am used to a life resembling a roller coaster.

And yet, I still feel a new sense of complete uncertainty right now. The old map — the one that I was used to my whole life — isn’t working anymore. I need to come up with a new one.

How My Life Has Changed Because of the Coronavirus

I am a future-thinker, and I love making plans for travel and new experiences. I can’t do any of that anymore.

It’s my birthday next week, and I was preparing to see my family (whom I haven’t seen for months), but now that’s canceled too. I can’t even go to a restaurant to celebrate my birthday.

I am not saying this so that you feel sorry for me because most people have it worse.

My friend got sick with coronavirus, and she told me how she’s treated in Russia (spoiler: they tell her it’s flu so that the government counts less “cases”). I feel sorry for her. The good news is, she is young, and her immune system fought the virus. She’s getting better.

But what I can’t stop thinking about is — what should I do now? The coronavirus changed the world (and life) so fast, it puts things into perspective.

Some of the questions I keep asking myself:

What should I focus on doing now, sitting at home 99% of the time?

Why do I need money if I am sitting at home? How much do I need? Sitting at home is not that bad. Did I ever need money in the first place?

What is success? Imagine that self-isolation is your life. What kind of success would you have then?

And what should I write more about on Medium?

What Writers Should Talk About

So far, I have the answer to only the last question. I should stop writing about “success,” “money,” and “productivity” because all of it doesn’t matter now.

Tim Denning said that the world needs nurses, doctors, and writers. And writers need to get rid of their “content plans” and “evergreen content” at this point.

The biggest threat to people in the western world is not the coronavirus or the economy fallback that we’ll inevitably experience. It’s the loss of hope or a sense of purpose.

When you’re sitting at home, and when all of your old routines are dead, it’s easy to fall into a depressive state, not understanding what you need to be doing with your life.

Writers need to create content that gives hope and a sense of meaning.

What Should Non-Writers Do

Two things:

a) Self-isolate: because that way, you’ll help the medical systems of the world by not spreading the virus.

b) Use the time and mind space suddenly available to reassess what matters.

That last point is important.

Reset Your Priorities

The coronavirus showed the world something we all forgot: we are not in charge.

When you’ve got the Internet, it’s easy to think that all the problems in the past you’ve read about in history textbooks are problems of the “old world.”

The war, the plague, the cold war, and atomic bombs — all of this doesn’t apply to the world where you can send a cat video to New Zealand in a split-second.

But that’s just how the human brain works: we think we’re invincible.

And we also can’t imagine something new happening, something we’ve never seen before. That’s why most people were more afraid of WW3, but couldn’t imagine the virus outbreak.

When you’re self-isolated and sitting at home, it’s time to put things into perspective. Life has changed. Accept it for your own sake. Things are not going to get back to normal any time soon, possibly not until the end of 2020.

Find a way to live with it.

How to Find Hope in Self-Isolation

One thing that helps me (however weird that might sound) is imagining that I am on house arrest, and I can’t leave my house. In Russia, this happens all the time to creative, talented, and smart people — so just imagine that the whole world is Russia (oh god!).

A dose of inspiration: One of the most famous movie directors in Russia (Kirill Serebrennikov) wrote and directed two movies two years ago while sitting on an 18-month house arrest. They both won multiple awards.

Being self-isolated is the perfect time for doing creative things. You can (finally!) start that hobby you’ve always wanted, and finish that book you’ve always wanted to finish.

It’s the time when you don’t have to spend a lot of money (so you can save more of it). It’s time to build healthy habits, and get rid of the unhealthy ones.

Don’t think of this time in terms of “self-isolation,” even.

Think of it as a holiday, a chance, a gift from life — and find a way to make the most of it.

What if *THIS* is How Your Life Will Be?

Another thing that helps me is imagining that this — sitting at home, looking out the window at the empty streets, not being able to go even to McDonald’s — is life.

There is a movie, called Room — about a girl that was born in a room and lived there her whole life.

Imagine that life has changed, and you won’t be able to leave your house ever.

How does that change your perspective? What will you do? What will you find happiness in, satisfaction, success?

For me, self-isolation is a chance to go on a deep intellectual and internal journey. It’s the time when I can finally let go of everything else, and just focus on making art (writing), and become better at it.

And it’s the time when I finally stop planning so much for the future and learn to live and be in the present moment.

For the past few years, I got too used to traveling when I am bored, going out when I have nothing else to do, and wasting a lot of money.

Now I have a chance to learn to appreciate the little things, find fulfillment in them, and generally learn to live simply.

The world is not over, it’s still spinning, and you’re still alive. However, your life has changed over the past few months, just continue living.

Keep going. Keep laughing. Keep creating. Don’t stop.

Wash your hands and love each other.