Detox
There are so many things we are all missing during this time of community self-isolation. We are missing coming into campus and being able to physically catch-up with our peers. For those who are working as well, we miss being able to physically come into an office, collaborate face-to-face, and then transition from work to home mode during the evening. We miss walking to our favorite local café to pick up our morning coffee. We miss catching up with family and friends and celebrating special occasions together. We miss heading to the Central Markets where we participate in the buzz of things as we pick out fresh and artisan local produce. We miss weekends where we can spend volunteering our time to causes we are passionate about.
Yet, this crisis also presents other opportunities. With working from home and social distancing being the ‘new normal’, social communication largely takes place online. In some ways, this has presented an opportunity to detox. We can communicate mostly with those we need to and those we want to. Outside of the necessary work requirements, now there is the opportunity to choose who, when, and what we respond to. We can take this time to be introverted if we wanted. We can choose to detox our timelines. We can choose whether we take that phone call right now or wait for a voice mail to come through. We can slow down or speed up. We can detox or binge. We can be still or we can bombard ourselves with never-ending news, shows, forum comments, and so on.
I’m enjoying this opportunity to detox. This is a good time to detox my timeline, detox my fridge, detox my closet, detox the mind, detox all the boxes of cluttered things I’ve held on to for many years thinking they are necessities. This is a good time to look at and appreciate the essentials, make space for the ‘new normal’, and forge into the future.