Morning Pages, March 19th, 2020

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the D.C. metro region has been in a state of partial lockdown. To alleviate fear and stress, my writer's group has put together a daily "morning pages" get-together on Zoom in order to touch base before starting the day. Here's some of my brief thoughts.

I think things have definitely shifted in just the past week or two economically. I started off this sabbatical thinking that I'll just go to June or July to work on my own stuff, because I need the time. I still think I need the time, but I'm not sure if the present economic pressure may change things. I've never been through a recession out in the real world before.

I think one comforting thing is how there's a lot of people in the same boat as I am, and how everybody will be screwed if this lasts for more than a few weeks, which I think is almost certain, since it will likely take a year in order to create and distribute enough vaccine. People mentioned online about how hard millenials have it, but others have mentioned the "greatest generation" and how they survived the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and WWII, so it's not like this is completely new for all people. Maybe it'll make other alternatives to a job, such as starting my own thing, or maybe going to grad school, more appealing options.

I stayed inside all of yesterday, and got a good deal of cabin fever. Also locked up my phone for all of yesterday, and went pretty stir crazy because it kept buzzing for two hours until it ran out of battery. Lights went out four times too. But in general, things could be better and they could be worse.

I still need to adjust my sleep schedule. I didn't manage to make it to the 7:00AM meeting, and I was late to this meeting too, which is pretty embarrassing because it's virtual and all I need to do is to crawl to my computer. I dialed the time I should be going to bed earlier by one hour and hopefully that will help things.

I've developed one habit, where I take a picture of myself and send it to somebody showing I'm ready for the day, and say to the mirror "I live in the best of all possible worlds. Everything I do today, I choose to do". That helps me get in the right mindset.