Monday, November 23, 2020

Goals in the Time of a Pandemic...

 So starting to think about 2021. As you all know I didn't set goals for this year. Turns out that's a good thing. Pandemic and all. 

Or maybe that was a bad thing. Pandemic and all. 

I mean, focusing has been really hard. I am reading more slowly than normal. Even really good, enjoyable books take me longer to get through than normal. I just can't focus.

Fiction writing has been almost non-existent. Sadly if a friend of mine weren't going through HUGE emotional upheaval I'm not sure I would have had anything to write at all. Which, I KNOW, makes me somewhat of an awful person, but you all should know that your lives end up in my stories all the time. Sometimes it's just more obvious than others. 

Food and exercise just crashed around my head when the gym shut down, and Brent's mother died (especially since I hadn't yet stopped grief eating from when my mother died) and it was really hard to get motivated to do anything about it. Well until the damage was severe. And even then I'm only THINKING about fixing it. I mean, I'm working out a bit again, we set up a small home gym, but I haven't yet committed to the food aspect, which I need to do or the weight isn't going to budge. 

Doing something new? Well, yeah, that's not going to happen. 
Studying something interesting? I mentioned the lack of focus right? 

But I can't decide if all of that challenge meant it's a good thing I didn't have goals set up because I would never have met them or if it's a bad thing because if I did have goals set up maybe I would have pushed through to actually meet them. 

Which brings us to 2021.

Which way do I fall? Set the goals and try to force them through or set no goals and just hope to make it through the year in one piece?

Because, holy shit, we are still in it aren't we?

The current president is trying to execute a coup. The incoming president will be faced with an economic and health disaster that is beyond our imagination. We have no idea what else there is that we don't even know about. We are facing down a government shut down right now. Funding runs out in December and I just don't see Trump caring enough to stop it. He didn't win so he doesn't care. This is the part where he declares bankruptcy and walks away. Or at least almost that part. Right now he's still claiming he won.

His very devoted base honestly believes the election was stolen from him and are now all on their own social media platform reinforcing that belief with each other. And in that base is a group that is ready for Civil War, The Sequel. And that's actually pretty terrifying. 

I have no idea where we go next year. 
I have no idea how things are going to unwind. 

It's a very weird position to be in.

But we've got three different companies with vaccines on the horizon. Each with their own challenges, super cold storage, more than one dose, that sort of thing, but still. Three. So maybe by the summer we will all have the opportunity to get the vaccine and things can start to settle in to whatever the new normal is going to be. Maybe. Except for the anti-vaxxers who aren't going to get it, and the ones who think Bill Gates is going to microchip them, and the ones who think Trump rushed it, and the ones who will think Biden shouldn't get credit and... 

I have no idea how things are going to unwind.

We live in precarious times. Our government doesn't work. I mean, a lot of us kind of knew that before, but there is a difference between "I'm pretty sure it's not the best" to "Holy shit, this is awful."

So 2021. What do we think? 
Goals?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it has to be:
Make it through. 

Fingers crossed for all of us. 

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