One thing we’re learning as we stay home during C19 is that “if we only had the time” isn’t real. I think it’s one of the unexpected more depressing aspects of this whole situation.
When provided with the “opportunity” of “spare time” to work on those things that we’ve always wanted to get done, we’re not actually doing any more of them than we ever did. Having no place to be on Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday evenings like we usually would doesn’t re-open those evenings for other productive activities.
It’s kind of liberating in a way, if you change your mindset to realize what has always been true. You were never going to build that thing, or clean that thing, or write that thing, or whatever you were going to do. Without being intentional or changing habits, none of that stuff happens, and it’s even more starkly apparent when you don’t actually have anything else to do.
One of the many downsides of the quarantine (which isn’t really a “quarantine”, but hasn’t settled on its own vocabulary yet - another oddity of the C19, which is maybe how I’ll plan on naming it going forward) is not so much that these long-standing projects aren’t getting done, but the realization that we’re fundamentally “lazy” animals who don’t do anything we’re not essentially motivated to do.
Anyone reading this might think, “Oh, that’s not me.” And I have pity for you. You have two options: Continue to be oblivious to the actual state of your reality, or ultimately burn out having convinced yourself that the eternal busywork is productivity. It’s not. It’s time to sit down and take stock. Or maybe just relax for a bit and come to terms with the way things are.
