Quarantine Is Not A Competition
Grab a book! Start a course! Paint a picture! Learn a language! Play an instrument!
STOP.
Please. Why do we think it is okay to tell people how they should be managing their lives during this time?
A couple of days ago I read the following tweet:
“If you don’t come out of this quarantine with either: 1. a new skill 2. starting what you’ve been putting off like a new business 3. more knowledge. You didn’t ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline.”
What impressed me the most was not the tweet itself but the fact that it had more than a million likes. Seriously, what is the deal with these people?
It is one thing to try to inspire and help others so they can reach their potential. A completely different one is judging them for their lack of discipline in the middle of a pandemic.
These days are hard. They are harder for some and the hardest for others.
Where did we leave the empathy? Everybody is dealing with a battle you know nothing about.
I don’t want to play the victim role because I know there is so much darkness out there. But I have a broken ACL and my surgery has been postponed indefinitely. So imagine someone telling me that I should seize these days to exercise to the maximum or otherwise “what I lacked was the discipline”. How out of place would that be?
I have a bad knee. And the bad knee for others could be losing their jobs or losing a relative who got infected. Or getting the virus themselves.
It is not the time to judge who does what with their time. It is not right during a pandemic and it is not right without a pandemic.
If you feel good picking up a hobby, if you feel happier reading, dancing, writing, exercising, that is ok. But it is also ok to just feel it all and be quieter.
You don’t have to create something to prove anything to anyone.
If you feel good sleeping more than usual, binge-watching Netflix and eating your favorite snacks, that is ok. You don’t lack discipline, you are just different.
Not every human being is going to process what’s happening in the same way. Every person is unique and will find a way to cope with all of this. But it will be their way, not yours. And one is no better than the other. It is just another way.
This is not a competition. The pandemic is already stressful enough to be reading stuff that adds more stress because “you are not being productive enough”.
Let’s be more empathetic. Let’s inspire others without labels, without judging, without rudeness.
Because they are not wrong, they are just not you.
