I'm a bit of a news whore. I love watching it. First thing in the morning, I make my coffee, park my butt on the sofa, and attend my daily date with the CBS This Morning crew. God, I love Gayle King. I mean, Tony and Anthony are great, but Gayle is my fave. The only time my date changes is Sunday morning when Gayle takes a break and I listen to the trumpet play and I'm warmly welcomed by Jane Pauley. She's no Charles Osgood, but she's brilliant and I'll take her. Over the last year, all of my CBS friends have been discussing the various aspects of the pandemic from breakouts to masks to lockdowns to vaccines. The through line has been tragic loss and people past the verge of exhaustion.
However, I've also noticed creation and productivity, forward momentum in life. Some people have taken the opportunity amidst the restrictions and frustrations to not just look at the situation and rail against it, lamenting what they can't do, but instead to explore what they can do. Painters have painted, writers have written, musicians have musicked (why didn't spellcheck call me out on that?).
I've taken my own turn on the pandemic-go-round. COVID hit close to home when Janice tested positive in March of 2020 here in Shanghai. While I'm enormously grateful for the lengths China has gone to keep her people and guests safe and healthy, the inability to travel and return home without the risk of forfeiting our jobs at a place we love has been heartbreaking at times. I have felt, as have most of my colleagues and others in similar situations around the world, a feeling of being trapped and having zero options.
Yet, I do have options. I've chosen therapy. I've met with a therapist virtually every week (mostly) since July working through different things. And that therapist was preceded by two others. I've chosen to workout and take care of my health. I've chosen to invest in friendships and build my community. I've chosen to imagine and write, making a dream of mine come true. While so many things have been out of my control, I've gotten to choose how I will respond, create, and produce in the midst of it.
And let me be clear, I've sucked at this for years. I existed in a total victim mentality vacuum and was internally a miserable pro at it. I read a book a couple of years ago that began to turn it around, The Power of TED by David Emerald. I'm not a huge fan of how the book is written, but the ideas were path altering. At the core of it, the book expands the reader's mindset from victim mentality to the concept of a creator's mentality. The book and its ideas therein hit me just at the right moment when I was ready to hear them.
The Six is being released on Kindle in a little over a week and is already available in paperback at Amazon. While I've been working on the story of these six friends of mine for several years now, it's also the fruit of this last intense year. I can't help but be grateful for this often frustrating time and will look back on it as a total game changer.
So, how have you experienced the pandemic? What have you done in the midst of it? What's worked for you? Tell me in the comments!
Later.
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