BY: ANON
One silver lining of the pandemic was that it forced a lot of us to break free of our normal routine. Days once filled with places to be in-person were reduced to nothing. Like many people, I found myself unemployed for part of the last two years. Having attended a college that prides itself on its own stress culture, my brain tried to guilt-trip me each day I was unemployed and not in the process of starting a new job. So I turned the guilt into productivity, but I didn’t go right back to work.
After my last job as an essential worker through the first ten months of the pandemic, my mental health was in shambles. My workplace was so understaffed that the entire office would have to close if I got sick. For almost a year, I woke up every morning wondering if it would be the day I got Covid and my boss would have to close the doors for two weeks. Looking back, I wish I would have quit so much sooner. I know now that jobs are replaceable. My own well-being was irreplaceable.
Quitting that job was the most terrifying but rewarding decision I have ever made because it allowed me to restart my adult life. For the first time, I could wake up in the morning and not have the day already planned out for me. I was able to slow down and live in the present. I started filling my time with only things I really wanted to do. At 24, I knew I was lucky to be in a position where I could take a couple of months off work to focus on myself and decide what job field I wanted to enter next. I don’t have children or other familial obligations that require me to be a caretaker. The universe was telling me to make the most of this time, so I sure as hell tried.
My days blended into a series of Things I Always Meant to do While I was in College. Reading for pleasure. Learning how to use weights and do home workouts. Spending time outside every day. Teaching myself to cook and learning about nutrition. It didn’t feel like much at the time, but prioritizing my hobbies completely shifted my self esteem and mental health in a positive direction.
Reading while unemployed allowed me to connect with stories and separate reading for work/school from reading for pleasure. Autobiographies are my favorite genre right now. It’s always good to have a reminder that nobody else knew what they were doing in their twenties, either. I thought I loved reality TV, but, truly, books are underrated entertainment. Reading distracts me from negative thoughts but also helps me confront the feelings head-on and cut myself some slack. We are all only human.
In the earliest days of the pandemic, I had no motivation to be physically active. My full-time, stressful job left me feeling too tired to workout in the early mornings or in the evenings. Not to mention, I was a bit intimidated by the thought of working out within the four walls of my tiny, second-floor apartment. Normally I enjoyed exercising, but for years I relied solely on an elliptical or treadmill to get the job done. After quitting my job, I felt more inclined to try exercising at home. After all, what else did I have to do? So I bought light dumbbells and a yoga mat and got to work, using exercise posts on Pinterest to teach me what to do. A year later, I feel proud of the muscles I’m building. I look forward to working out a different muscle group every time and slowly but surely making myself stronger. I’m building a healthy body that can help protect me from injury and disease. I believe the cliche that we should exercise because we love our bodies, not because we hate them. Exercising and lifting weights has helped me nurture a much healthier relationship with my body than I used to have.
Learning how to cook was another crucial piece in learning to love myself. Grocery stores were some of the only places that were consistently open in 2020 and 2021. I started making a routine of going shopping once a week and always choosing at least a couple of fresh fruits and vegetables. I used to scoff at people who said things like “always have four colors on your plate.” It sounded like elitist soccer mom bullshit. Then the pandemic hit and I realized that good nutrition is just as important, if not, more important than any other preventative measures we were all taking to fight Covid-19. I started really listening to my body and paying attention to the differences in how I felt after eating a healthy, home-cooked meal or after ordering takeout. It’s true that grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking all take time and effort. But to me it’s a form of self care, no different than making time to shower, do our hair, do our nails, relax with our friends, or take a walk outside. I used to have a neutral relationship with food and didn’t pay attention to what I was putting in my body. I now treat food as a language; I communicate with my body when I feed it, giving it what it needs to be healthy. Planning meals and cooking regularly has nearly eliminated any and all anxieties I used to struggle with when it comes to spending money on food, eating healthy, and caring about my weight. None of that matters to me anymore when I think about everything my body has been through with me over the last twenty-five years. To be alive and breathing and able to move my body, I am grateful.
Spoiler alert, I ended up going back to work after a few months off. I sought out a job in an entirely new field and I’m in love with it still to this day. When I was preparing to start working full-time again, I felt nervous that I would slip into my old ways of being a couch potato during all my free hours after work. I feared that I would quit exercising regularly again and go back to ordering Jet’s Pizza or the Chinese place up the street every other night. However, it’s become clear in my new position that I am simply not that same person anymore. Long gone are the days of microwave meals and getting drunk on weeknights. I’d rather eat the homemade stir-fry and go to bed early. I make time before or after work to exercise, period. I developed new, healthy, long-sticking habits during the time I was unemployed that promote good mental health and remind me that work isn’t everything. The college I went to had it all wrong; stress is not a feeling to be encouraged and glamorized. You can live a life full of value without having a six-figure income (or making it your life’s goal). Hustle culture is bullshit. We do not live to work.
The person who looks back at me in the mirror in 2022 is so much happier than the person who looked back at me at the start of 2021. I know that I am taking the steps to become the strongest and healthiest version of myself and that makes me feel beautiful in return. My body is so amazing for being able to read books, lift weights, and cook food. This revelation came into fruition while I wasn’t working, but even now that I’m back to work, I haven’t let it die. I prioritize my hobbies now because they make me who I am. And I love me.
The Philosophy of Aarel 
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