It’s a bizarre world out there and everyone seems to be doing better. Doing something.
We spend hours on our phones each day, and I often find myself scrolling through Instagram, seeing the perfect worlds of everyone else. Our lives controlled by the ‘likes’. Everyone else doing better, doing more – that everything we do should be productive, turning hobbies into a job. Enjoying your favourite activity because you enjoy it is not enough, unless it’s productive.
Constantly being surrounded by social media, it’s almost impossible to stay out of it. FOMO ruling our lives and convincing yourself you need the new ‘it’ item, or that you should be doing that new craze. Because that’s what fun is, right? If I’m not doing that then I’m not doing enough.
Don’t get me wrong, I love social media and can easily spend an hour, or two, scrolling through Instagram, or planning to try all those Pinterest ideas, but it can easily get overwhelming. Especially as most of us have been in lockdown recently. Did we do enough when we were at home, redecorate, or knit that blanket you always said you would?
But I have a secret to tell you.
You are enough.
You are here.
You are living.
Whether you volunteered or went to school. Went to work. Stayed home.
You are enough. You are doing your part.
Recently I’ve found myself reflecting on the past year and thinking about what I’ve done and whether I’ve done enough.
I didn’t go on that holiday. I didn’t make that lifestyle change. I didn’t read that book. I didn’t finish this or that. But that’s not the way to look over the past year.
It’s been a hard and strange year for all of us. Our lives have been put on hold, and maybe we aren’t where we planned to be at this time of our lives. We’re getting there though. We may all be in the same storm, but we’re not all in the same boat.
With this in mind, we need to look at it in a different way.
What did we do?
We stood by our friends and family.
We cheered and clapped and raised money.
We helped our communities.
We made late-night phone calls to our friends when they needed us.
We learned how to Zoom, and taught our families how to join in.
We loved fiercely.
We found a new way of living.
We ran clubs and supported those in need.
We cared about each other more than ever.
We discovered how resourceful we can be.
We learned new things and found a new way to survive.
We watched far too much Netflix and baked lots of cake.
We found new hobbies and rediscovered old hobbies.
We changed the world.
In a world and a life none of us could have imagined, we were still enough.
No matter what you did, no matter who you are, you are enough.
Image by Felicia Buitenwerf
