Pay attention. To yourself.
Have you been paying attention? This was a question I asked in a Facebook post yesterday in regards to the lessons learned during the pandemic. I’m not talking about the lessons about how badly a global pandemic can be managed or how stupid people in power can be or the dawning realisation that when you refer to a group as mouth breathers, it’s a label that they actually identify with – why else would they not cover their nose with their mask?
The galloping housewife is going a bit more existential with this. It’s true that Covid-19 has changed the way we live. No one has escaped the impact. We’ve missed holidays and celebrations, competitions and pub lunches. Most of us have had financial contractions and all of us have had social restrictions. It’s been tough for everyone.
As a result we’ve had to make choices. With less money to spend, with less options of what to do, and with a smaller social circle, we’ve had to prioritise. And if you’ve been paying attention, those priorities can tell you a great deal about what is really important to you.
The galloping housewife has always been the ambitious sort. She’s been driven by a desire to do better, to know more, to be more. The problem was that she hadn’t really been paying attention as to what exactly she wanted to be better at, to know about, to be more of. As a result she was busy being busy, doing stuff that might once have served her, might once have interested her, might once have moved her in a direction she no longer wanted to travel.
She is now more aware. She knows want she wants and what is worth working on. She has set boundaries with herself and with others that respect her own personal journey. She also knows what she has been missing most and by paying attention to that what needs to be a priority when circumstances allow.
What about you? I’ll ask the question again. This year has not been ideal, by any stretch of the imagination, but it has opened up our eyes in so many ways to what is important to us. Have you been paying attention?
