My two cents on pandemic and regrets

I'm not much of a writer, even though I used to be very good when was I growing up. But this text won't be about my past — nor my writing skills — because I am aiming for something a bit more important here.

Since this pandemic got really bad in Brazil, around mid-March, a lot of people — me included — started to rethink their lives a bit. I guess being locked inside your home 24/7 really puts some things into perspective, and I could see that all over LinkedIn. All these beautiful and well written texts about how you should take the opportunity of being home all this time to change you mindset instantly and start to take one course a week, learn 2 new languages, improve your resume, join a yoga online class on Sunday mornings, learn how to cook, etc etc etc. On the other hand, there was the people that would also have very nice and well written texts about how it is okay to just not do anything at all and wait for all to just pass, a vaccine to be found and to just go back to their regular lives.

Well, where do I stand in all that? I am not fond of all this extremism — you either go all in or you don't even sit on the table to play a few hands.

See, I believe that us, human beings, have this terrible attitude of blaming ourselves when something doesn't go as planned and we usually regret it. That is the thing about making the choice of taking action, sometimes it will work great, sometimes we will fail miserable because of bad decisions and it is like that with e v e r y o n e. I got a couple of regrets for myself, one of them being not going earlier for a traineeship in the US for instance. But you know what I've realised it is more regrettable? The things we choose not to do. I can think about a million things I could have done differently in my life, you probably can as well, but the ones that are worse always end up being the ones I chose not to do.

On the last day before the pandemic actually started in my city — everything closed, remote work, you know the drill — I've decided not to go to a nightclub. I wanted to, but it was late, I was tired, so I just went home. Of course when the lockdown came, the first thing I thought was not about the crazy expensive terrible drink I've had a couple days ago, even though I regretted the purchase, but the nightclub I didn't go to went through my mind. "What if I had gone and had a blast?". "If I had decided to do a different course, "If I had actually gone more to the gym when I was younger and single, "If I had taken that trip", do you see the pattern here? IF sucks.

So when I saw myself stuck at home, with no other choice other than decide to use my time wisely, instead of just letting this sickening routine of work, eat, sleep, repeat snatch me, I made a decision. Because you see, I've stated already that IF sucks, and I couldn't do this to myself anymore. I was willing to be the person that would at least leave quarantine knowing I would not have another set of ifs added to my list. Now, the next few paragraphs are the reason you've read this text until here, because they are my actual two cents for you:

When the quarantine started in my city, I started to exercise every-single-day. It kept and keeps me sane, it makes me feel good and it relaxes me. And when it all started, the sane part was the main reason I'd exercise, so I looked forward to that part of my day. I don't want to leave quarantine knowing if I had taken the time to take care of my mind and body I wouldn't be a mess. See, it was not adding two new languages and virtual zumba to my daily to-do list. I added something that made me feel relaxed and productive. When I work I feel productive when I am able to do everything within 8 hours, sure, but that is not something I am doing for myself entirely. So my first cent would be: find something in your day that truly makes you feel like you've achieved something and gives you more gas to do a second one, a third productive thing in the same day. For me is exercising, for you might be the yoga thing, or baking, drawing, learning an instrument (or playing one that you already know). Just don't let yourself sabotage your potential to get rid off the ifs in your life.

I was pretty happy with myself and my daily exercises. In the beginning, it was enough to fulfill my need to be productive, and for me to not feel like I was just going to regret not using my time wisely. But, I wanted more. Because after three, four weeks, I knew I could keep a promise to myself of doing something other than sleep, work and watch TV. See, we have this unconscious voice in our heads that constantly tell us that we don't have time. I had a teacher that used to say, when students told him that they didn't have time for all the homework and books to read:

What do you do from midnight to 6am?

Of course that was a bit exaggerate from his part, but do you see the lesson? You've got time, but you have to organize yourself, and here my friends, is my second cent: plan, organise and find time to invest in yourself. Think about your day, carefully and honestly. For instance, I have one hour lunch every day and I was not doing anything with that, so I propose myself another little challenge: I'd take 20 minutes of my lunch break to study french. More specifically, to study french on Duolingo, because I could do it laying in bed, or sitting comfortably on my couch. My effort was minimum and I am on a 132 days streak as I am writing this article. Little by little, I've started to find what I like to call lazy hours in my days and fill them with something that could make me better, like learning to code; or happier, like learning how to be an advanced excel user which it is just something I've always wanted to do.

Now, if you got to here without quite understanding the message I am trying to pass, you've been warned on the very first line: I am not a writer. I am only a person that found out, with my good 28 years old, because of a terrible pandemic, how to be productive and take advantage of that. Start slowly, have goals, be focused, and as my last but not least piece of wisdom I will leave you with a phrase I saw on LinkedIn one of these days, but I cannot recall or find the author, nor remember the exact phrase, but it was something on these lines:

If you are afraid of starting something today because you think that you are already too old, or that now it is already too late, remember that a person that starts a new college being 32 years old will be 36 years old in four years, no matter if s/he started the college or not.

Cheers.