It's been about a year since our lives were turned upside-down. I remember listening to the news, warning of the disaster that happened across the globe in what we thought was a little town called Wuhan (population 11.08 million). We watched millions of people go into a militant style of lockdown and assumed that this was a common cold that wouldn’t affect us near as bad as it had over there. I admit, even I was hesitant to put on a mask and to stress out as much we do today. Then I remember hearing the reports of people getting very sick. I remember picking my kids up from their schools for march break, assuming that this would only last a week or two and that by summer, everything would go back to the way it was… man, that was a long march break!
That was almost a year ago! Would you look at that!
Do you remember what life was like before the stress of this whole ordeal?
Would you say that your stress was lower, higher or about the same as it is now?
In the midst of our current social climate, it might be an understatement to say that most of us are stressed beyond what we typically perceive as “normal”. Or at least, this is unfortunately what we are now considering to be “the new normal” based on our government’s response to the covid-19 pandemic.
But think about your life before all of this. Do you remember being stressed-out?
The most stressful days I can think of was when I was in my mid-twenties. Although I remember those days with (mostly) fondness, I don’t think I’d ever like to get into a proverbial tardis and do it all again. Travelling back to being a young father while working as a full-time minister and chipping away at a Masters’ degree on the side—you know, for the fun of it all—doesn’t sound like a walk in the park. And it wasn’t! I remember eating poorly, sleeping erratically and being incredibly depressed while trying to put on a happy face to keep good Christian folk entertained on a weekly basis. If you were to ask me what my stress level was on a given day, it would usually be on the higher end of the scale, and if not, breaking the healthy point of between “I think I’m okay” to “I’m ready to set a dumpster on fire so I can watch something else burn for a while!”.
Yeah, those were fun times.
And I’m sure as you think about the times that you were extremely stressed-out, you might realize that you were even more stressed than this very moment.
So how did you get through it?
I don’t know if I can answer that question with a simple coherent thought line, other than the fact that I just had to get through it. I had to take one step after another, kicking and screaming (and using all the pirate-style vocabulary that I could think of), but eventually I got through it.
And you got through yours.
And here we are again… going through another moment where one day, we will look back… and never, ever, ever want to do it again.
Because the way that we often perceive stress is that what you go through now, will very likely be higher than what you will be going through about 6 months from now; or even a year from now. I think they call that the hopeful perspective. And it’s something we can’t help but do as human beings because the way we process information tends to work in narrative or stories.
And the best stories that are worth telling have some sort of conflict or drama. Other than that, it’s a boring sitcom on CTV that ends up being cancelled after its first season.
So picture yourself as the main character of your story.
And this stress that you are going through is a part of what makes the story worth telling.
Then go handle it as the way you feel it’s worth handling. Struggle if you need to. Swear if you need to. Laugh if you need to. Cry if you need to. Smile if you want to. And dance like you always wanted to and never felt free to.
Do what you need to do to make the story worth living.
And then realize that your story is not over and that there are pages to be written of how you overcame this awful scene. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m excited to see what you end up doing next.
Until Next Time,
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