Dear 2020, Thank You for Stripping Away My Routines and Good Habits
I spent a large part of 2020 under the illusion that things are supposed to be easy. I am supposed to stay fit without exercising. I am supposed to be productive without having a morning routine. I am supposed to retain my mental health without seeing any friends, getting outside at least once a day or limiting my use of social media. Essentially, I wanted what I believe every child wishes for: no rules, boundaries or routines. Little did I know it would make me miserable.
For most of us, 2020 stripped away our familiar structures. The commute to the office or campus, the coffee break with colleagues, the inspiring conversations at dinner parties and the casual encounters in our hobbies. And many of us, including myself, thought that if there is no need to commute to work, there is no need to wake up at 6:30. I might as well get up at 8:30 to begin work at 9.
But eventually life proved me wrong. Not seeing any friends and family gnawed at my mental health. Endlessly jumping from one screen to another made me feel distracted. Not setting an alarm at about the same time every morning made me unproductive. Sitting around most of the day gave me back pain. In other words, 2020 left me anxious, restless, discontent and in physical pain.
Now that we have passed the imaginary line that marks the shift from 2020 to 2021, I can reflect on what the past year taught me. I want to thank 2020 for stripping away all my routines and good habits. For allowing me to experience what it feels like to live without them.
Gradually, I realized that an easy life is not a good life. (I acknowledge how privileged I am to say this.) I understood that I really do not thrive without any routines or boundaries.
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, at its core, I was confronted with my values and priorities, or more accurately, not living in line with them. I learnt that I value relationships, mental and physical health as well as personal growth. And for these to be possible, I need reminders, rules, routines and boundaries. The only problem was that no one was going to set these boundaries for me. I had to set them for myself.
The physical pain was the easiest to solve. I realized quite quickly that my body is not built for inactivity. For a while, I wondered why no one else seemed to complain about back pain due to endless sitting. Can others really skip exercise and not be in pain? Am I also supposed to be able to do this much sitting? When I finally accepted that regardless of whether other people got back pain from too much sitting, it certainly did not suit me. As we often find, the answer lie within me, not outside of me. After a few weeks of long walks combined with a few YouTube training sessions per week (thank you, Pamela Reif!), my back pain basically disappeared. (And ironically reappeared every time I began to slip away from my workout routine.)
I also began to rebuild other routines and habits. I began to wake up between 7 and 7:30. I got back to my daily meditation practice. I started doing the “morning pages”, which basically means writing a few pages of stream of consciousness text first thing in the morning. I began to make appointments with my friends to go for a walk or invited someone over for dinner (when possible). I started calling my sister who lives abroad almost every weekend. I decided to put away my phone one or two hours before bedtime and to instead read a book, go for a walk or do some stretching.
To feel better, I rebuilt rules, boundaries and routines for myself. It sounds a bit funny, but to put it simply, I began to parent myself.
The experience of losing and rebuilding habits raised some important questions in me.
When there are no structures that create external accountability, am I able to stand up for myself? Do I love myself enough to create the necessary boundaries for a balanced life? If I was destined to live this way forever, what would I want to my everyday life to be like?
On the surface, I asked myself: “What do my routines look like when nobody is watching?” But inherently, I was asking myself what I value, who I want to be and what a good life is. In the present moment. Not tomorrow.
