MOTIVATION

What happens when a pandemic puts life on hold?
Suddenly you can no longer meet up with your friends, take a plane or train for a weekend trip to explore a new city, go on a date. You can’t see a movie or a theatre show, meet new people, spend time with loved ones that are not in your household. Maybe you are in an unhappy relationship and are suddenly confined to the same place for three months. What do you do?
Or you are single, living alone and not allowed to see anyone. We start to question our lives, to see a chance of looking at new possibilities. Yet we also fear change. We ask: am I happy in my work? Do I want to live my life as I have been living it? How could I change my life for the better?
I want to fall in love. I want to make my own decisions. I want to be happy again. I want to start a business. I want to change my life. But is now the best time? Or should I rest, should I wait? How can I achieve any of these things and make my wishes and dreams come true when the whole world has stopped?

Everyone has these thoughts. We are not alone.

Friendship and friends become even more important. They help us through these uncertainties. Calls, texts, video chats, pictures, even letters or small care packages make everything a little bit easier. Friends are with us in the ups and downs, the loneliness, the insecurities. Who could have imagined what we would come up with to stay connected? A Zoom dinner with ten friends who cook the same meal and eat ‘together’? Fabulous. Live workouts with people from Asia, Australia and the UK? Amazing! Waking up to the same sunrise in different cities and meditate together? Wonderful!

Our story shows how, in these crazy times, when so many things are uncertain, we still can find wonderful moments, stay connected and close, find refuge in the smallest of spaces or even try to have a date with someone on a balcony six metres below.