Right now our lives are shaken up.

Our careers, our lifestyles, routines and relationships are being challenged, and we have to decide what to do with ourselves, our time and our space. How do we maintain order and clarity, how do we stay energized and focused, how can we stay sane when half the things we typically do with our lives are no longer possible?

It’s important to get down to basics, what do you need as an individual to keep your head on straight? What keeps you happy, feeling connected and continuing to grow when everything feels like it’s moving nowhere?

Now is an opportunity to re-evaluate our situations. What we’ve been doing with our lives, where we’ve been taking our lives, how we’ve been treating our lives and what meaning we’ve been giving to our lives.

When we used to make the one hour commute to the office every morning, or look forward to hitting the pub with our friends come weekend, now we’re stuck at home. When our lives revolved around work and play, now what do they revolve around? When our schedules go from go go go to slow slow slow, how do we choose to fill the gaps in our everyday experiences?

For some, when the pandemic and quarantine is over life will go back to normal. But for the majority of us, even that normal will never be the same. The psychological and social impacts of this event will stay locked in our personal and collective psyches for months, years, perhaps even lifetimes.

The challenges we’re being faced with now, will not easily fade away, or will just be simply covered up until another catastrophe reveals their rearing faces. Boredom, lack of direction, unhealthy habits, information overload… will all remain if we don’t address the issues and figure out solutions for ourselves.

Here’s the thing, each and every one of us is different, so there is no one size fits all approach to figuring out the predicament. It’s essentially a mystery, cracking the code to our own wellbeing and happiness will forever be a journey into the unknown, maybe the most difficult task to undertake of all time.

But this doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

With the right mindset, we can handle the problems we now face and the many more that are surely to come, and this is the first step - how to remain positive, proactive and keep relaxed when everything seems to be in shambles?

I propose a question to consider - what do you want your life to be like coming out of covid? If you could be anyone you wanted, be working any job, living anywhere, feeling anyway, loving anyone… not for money or success or approval but for the pure joy and beauty of it, what would these be? Use your imagination.

I read an article recently by author David Brooks. He said time usually seems to flow in a continuous stream for us. For the next two years though, it’s being handed to us in a box. Our social, economic and spiritual dynamics will forever be altered, and this is a time like no other to drop our preconceived and conditioned notions of what is, what was, and what needs to be, and decide for ourselves what we want to see going forward.

Now might not be the best time to start a new corporate path or make a lot of money, but it can be a time to become more interesting. Yes, become more interesting, to experiment, to create something new. To try new things, to connect with new people, to explore new ways of thinking and living that before may have seemed too risky. The box is here and the box is cracked open, and there are many gifts inside ready to be given a try.

This will be harder for different people, depending on a range of different socio-economic, personal and family predicaments. For those that can’t work from home, or are struggling pay check to pay check things are tougher than ever before. Pitch in where you can, lend a hand where it’s needed. Because despite the forms this may take, exploring new paths still possible for all, and just as important.

There might not be a bunch of how-to steps or clear action items from this post, but that wasn’t the intent. The idea was to get us thinking. Yes this was a free flow of consciousness I just poured out, but it’s what’s on my mind, and I do believe if you sit with this for some time, and just try doing one thing now to keep you moving forward - a new morning workout, cooking a new food, writing your own blog, having a different type of conversation, wearing a different fashion, reading a foreign subject, walking in nature, trying a little meditation - that something might connect and spark something new for you.