Personal Success During A Pandemic
We have recently been chatting within our team about what success might look like for us in the coming year. This got me thinking about what success looks like for me (for each of us) personally within the parameters of a global pandemic, lockdown woes and a serious longing for in person connection.
This past month has been extra tough for me and my family as right at the end of January, my husband and I tested positive for COVID. Luckily, we both felt the worst of it at different times, so one could rest more while the other looked after our three small kids (not my idea of fun!). At one point we had a paramedic in to check on my husband as he was really struggling to breathe and his oxygen levels had dropped to 86 (anything below 94 isn't great). But because of current circumstances and what we know about the virus, the paramedic had to deliver the bad news that there wasn't much he could do. He noted that in pre-COVID times an oxygen level that low would warrant taking him to hospital, but because of what they know they can and can't do he would just get sent home. My husband was advised that he had a few rough days and nights ahead but he would have to stick it out at home unless he got significantly worse.
Cue the next morning, me walking into our kitchen in the early hours to find the lights flickering, a red-hot light switch and water pouring through the ceiling. All this due to a hairline crack in the back of the toilet tank in the bathroom above. It was a scramble to get the water and electricity turned off and then see if we could get an emergency plumber in. I ended up being off work for three weeks and my husband is much better but still off work as he is suffering from what they call dysfunctional breathing.
Why am I telling you all this? I guess to paint the picture of the reality of the pandemic and what we have all been living through either in real life or in feeling the constant worry of the worst case scenario in the back of our minds. This has been our reality for a whole year now. And through it all people have coped in many different ways. Busyness at work, homeschooling kids, caring for elders all whilst learning needlepoint, or whittling wood, finishing puzzles, baking sourdough bread or just binging tv series after tv series on Netflix.
I want to also share that getting Covid left me with a small but still significant feeling of shame that I hadn't done enough to protect myself and my family. 'What if' scenarios start playing like movies in my head and I don't want people to know that I somehow failed. But then I remembered that it is better to air these feelings than hold them in and soon I felt relief from the lie that I should feel ashamed.
Here I am my first week back at work in the last month of the financial year wondering how to ease myself out through the other side of this recent trauma. Let's be frank , we have all to varying degrees, been going through a collective trauma together. Yet, we keep persevering in trying to grasp on to any semblance of normality, which includes immersing ourselves in our daily work. I have to constantly remind myself that comparing my work and the completion of my to-do lists to others won't help anything. As a friend reminded me recently, people aren't going to remember you for your spreadsheets and reports, but rather how you treated them and how much care you showed when they needed it most. This applies to how we operate in all areas of our life, even work. Because we are all still human even when we are working to deadlines.
So ultimately, this is a reminder to you, me, all of us to go gentle on ourselves (and others) and remember to take each day as it comes. What we can accomplish will vary from day to day, but as long as we gave it our best (even at our lowest of lows) that is good enough. That is the only way any of us should be measuring our success at this point in time. Tomorrow is a new day and just that little bit closer to seeing some light at the end of the lockdown tunnel.
