Thursday was Ostara, the Spring Equinox, and as such, my husband and I performed a relatively short, simple ritual, a repeat of last year’s. I didn’t have the energy to get creative and was grateful to see that the one I put together was still intact. The theme of Ostara is “balance,” as one might expect from an Equinox; light and dark, day and night. Spring is also a time of new beginnings, for life to grow, and us with it. A year ago, I had just made the decision to go back to college and pursue a degree that would lead to a purposeful new career.
However, there’s a pandemic on, and the world feels new and strange and frightening. Day after day, the news reports new cases and increasingly severe conditions worldwide, and governments take increasingly strict measures to try to control the contagion of COVID-19, everyone’s new favorite topic. The New York Times has even published a handy graph showing the speed of the spread of the virus and the sharp incline in the number of reported cases throughout the U.S.
On the one hand, the constant barrage of news is exhausting. On the other hand, the public’s lackluster response is disheartening and more than a little disappointing. The number of people dismissing reports from the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control almost boggles the mind. Early outbreaks were dismissed as inconsequential by President Donald J. Trump, who now claims he always knew it would be a pandemic. Whether he was lying then or is lying now, is not as concerning as seeing those who are either trumpeting their undying support of him, or those who have begun spewing conspiracy theories about who is “behind this” as though viruses don’t mutate of their own accord.
Preventive measures by government officials, such as Champaign’s Mayor and City Council enacting emergency powers ordinances, or Governors issuing “shelter in place” orders are viewed with suspicion, or decried as infringing upon the rights of free citizens. Indeed, in a country where we enjoy few limitations on our personal freedoms, common-sense safety precautions are decried as tyrannical or fascist when imposed by the government. As the recommendations continued to be ignored by the public, the safety measures demanded by officials increased in intensity and timeframe.
As of this writing, the State of Illinois, except for services deemed absolutely essential, is effectively shut down until at least the 7th of April, which means I had to apply for temporary emergency unemployment. My college extended Spring Break for an extra week to give professors time to convert their classes to an entirely online format. Commencement is canceled, both for Parkland and for the University of Illinois. At minimum, for the rest of the Spring Semester, I will not see my classmates, professors, or anyone in the administration face-to-face again.
To say that it is all overwhelming is putting it mildly. To paraphrase a favorite comic of mine, “my desire to remain informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.” I feel irresponsible if I pay no attention to the news. Still, a casual scroll through Facebook turns into a few hours of vacillating between irritation, despair, and a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about the coming weeks and months. No strict school schedule and no job to go to for at least two more weeks leaves me feeling adrift. I could work ahead in my textbooks, try to get a jump on upcoming assignments that I already have in my possession, or just read more of the books I already have at home that I’ve wanted to get into.
Instead, yesterday I sat down on the couch with my morning coffee and started watching the second season of Altered Carbon on Netflix, and with the occasional break in between, I watched the entire thing by 4:00 PM. (For the record, it is a fantastic show, and I highly recommend it, though in perhaps smaller doses than the one in which I consumed it.) Then, I took a nap, and around 6:00, I finally took a shower. My motivation is in short supply, as opposed to my husband, who cleaned the entire apartment while I continued my Netflix binge. To say that we’re handling this differently would be yet another understatement.
I’m a worrier, with obsessive tendencies. Whether it’s work, school, a book I’m reading, a TV show, or the latest news about the novel coronavirus, once something has my somewhat limited attention, I don’t really know how not to obsess. Lately, even before this outbreak got more absurdly out of control, I have been either in class, working on homework, or at work, and not doing a great job of staying on task with any of it. Doing everything at once, all the time, had begun to wear on my ability to focus, which then led to some old bad habits of numbing with television, the internet, or food.
Being off work for three weeks and out of school for an extra week, there is now the added stress of wondering how bills will be paid once money gets tight. Will there be a freeze on rent bills and utilities? Will there really be $1,000 checks coming from the government each month? Will unemployment actually pay out? Do I need to be looking for a different job if this goes on longer than the next couple of weeks? How much longer could this go on? This list of questions quickly spirals into a mild-to-moderate panic as I begin anticipating what sort of catastrophes could await if this does not blow over quickly—a possibility that seems more likely each day.
Suddenly, having all the time in the world is not the stress-relieving blessing I hoped for.
The issue is not being pulled in many directions at once, nor is it about immersing yourself in the news or sticking your head in the sand. As a society, we have a tendency to approach things from an “either/or” perspective, rather than “and.” And one thing I don’t frequently make time for is play. I recently read Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, where she talks about the need to cultivate play and rest. In a busy schedule of full-time school and full-time work, I struggle with making the time to relax and mindfully—meaningfully, even—do something that I enjoy just for the sake of doing it. Instead, I numb, and then feel guilty for numbing, which then becomes associated with doing things that aren’t strictly productive, thus perpetuating the cycle of burnout. Work too much, numb from stress, feel guilty, try to work, lack motivation and inspiration, numb, repeat.
Instead of numbing, making a conscious decision to set aside time for doing something enjoyable, or nothing at all, so that you can rest and recharge can make the time you spend on projects more effective and more rewarding. It seems so commonsensical that it’s almost absurd to write about it. What is more, this idea isn’t particularly new.
In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle teaches the idea of “the mean” concerning his concept of virtue. Without getting mired into the finer details of his ethical theory, or my quibbles with the things acceptable in ancient Athens that the modern world finds immoral and unethical, I think one of his most key points applies. About every virtue, our favorite polymath taught that one’s actions were only virtuous if they were knowingly, habitually, and by choice performed at the right time, toward the right person, in the right amount, for the right reason.
“The mean” meant satisfying all these conditions, which is a moving target for each person and situation, rather than a strict mathematical midpoint between excess and deficiency. For example, somewhere on the continuum between “cowardice” and “foolhardiness” one finds the idea of “bravery,” though its exact definition changes situationally. Put simply, “moderation in all things” was the name of the game as far as Aristotle was concerned.
And thus, we come back to the idea of balance. American pagan writer Scott Cunningham called “achieving balance” one of the Thirteen Goals of the Witch, introduced in his book Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. I think for many of us, pagan or no, “balance” is a goal we hope to achieve, often preceded by the phrase “work-life.” What often gets misconstrued is this idea that balance means all things equally, but suppose for a moment that Aristotle had it right.
Maybe the goal is not that everything takes equal time or effort, but that balance—real balance—is a constantly shifting target. And achieving it is about more than just getting everything done or keeping up with the news, or doing “enough.” Achieving balance in the time of COVID-19 is going to require taking time off to play—choosing to do so knowingly, and making a regular habit of it. That might be as simple as choosing to watch an episode of your favorite TV show before you go disinfect the kitchen, or reading a book and folding the laundry tomorrow.
If you feel like that makes you too unproductive, take a step back and ask yourself whether productivity is really the most important thing right now. There are bigger things in life than how much you get done every day, and maybe this is an excellent opportunity to make the most of your extra free time.
And to those of you who are working in those essential jobs—the healthcare workers, the social workers, the bankers, the grocery, hardware, and pet store employees, and anyone else who still has to leave the house to hopefully keep the rest of society going—I see you, and I am so, so, so grateful for you. Whenever we get through all this, I hope we see more change in our infrastructure to support us all, and I hope you know how much your sacrifices are appreciated. And I hope you get to put your feet up and binge Netflix to your heart’s content.
Daniel K. Sheff 