Benefits of my getting older: Appreciation for Health, Friendships & Time
One of the benefits of my getting older: Far greater appreciation for three things that are too often taken for granted: Health, Friendships & Time
As I've gotten another year older myself, I can attest that I do take those things for granted, going through COVID positive the last couple of weeks was a wake-up call to reset my GPS toward my true north.
In the midst of all we’re facing with COVID-19, it may seem strange to have a blog post about gratitude. But when you think about the connection between gratitude and our ability to find the positive, hold onto optimism, improve relationships and decrease stress, the reality is gratitude and appreciation are exactly what is needed.
It’s easy to get caught up in all that is going “wrong.” For me, my current situation has forced me to pause and reflect and pay attention to the good things in my life. It helped me find joy in the simplest of things like a nice cool winter breeze or the pleasure of seeing loved ones, something made even more dear in these days of social distancing.
Health
First, and this is something that has taken me weeks to recognise – the last few months have been a surprisingly frustrating time. The reason why admitting this requires courage is because social media and corporate comms channel are full of posts on how productive and efficient people are with their “Work From Home Setup”. Of course personal situations vary greatly, and we often have different coping mechanisms when faced with a crisis of the proportions of this pandemic.
The human body is quite amazing, and I realised myself how much mental health impacts physical health and vice versa. In light of the constantly changing medical landscape, and now with the COVID-19 Pandemic, remembering “wellbeing” is imperative to maintaining sanity and happiness.
In the immortal words of the poet Khalil Gibran, “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”
It takes practice and intention to create more room for gratitude. I work each day to remind myself of these important things:
Become a spectator to your own thoughts, especially when you become emotional, which is fundamental to compassion.
Being in the moment.
Be grateful for at least one thing every day; each morning, reflect one thing that you are grateful for from the day before and recall it throughout the day.
Go out of your way to be of service to others--to help others every chance you get. (e.g. Volunteering , doing something for a good cause ,
acts of kindness, etc.)
Want to join me in supporting a good cause? For my birthday this year, I'm asking for donations to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). I've chosen this nonprofit because their mission means a lot to me, and I hope you'll consider contributing as a way to celebrate with me. Your contribution will make an impact, whether you donate a lot or a little. Anything helps.
Your gift will help Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) bring lifesaving medical care to people in need. Emergencies come in many forms: armed conflicts, disease epidemics, natural disasters, malnutrition crises and more. Your gift ensures that when an emergency happens.
Your donation matters:
Friendships & Time
Finally, and it’s not difficult to see how strong social relationships can have a positive impact on mental health. Think about how happy you feel after having dinner with your friends or seeing your partner after a long day at work. Through positive, strong relationships, we find others to listen and lend emotional support, to laugh with, and to enjoy life with.
In some ways this has been the easiest and hardest: my experience has been rather mixed. Some friendships have deepened, new bonds have emerged, old friendships have renewed themselves. For some of my friends, distance makes no difference as we know our hearts and minds are connected. Others have been saddened perhaps by the inability to meet as a sign of lack of commitment. Perhaps they are right to be disappointed. Or perhaps a pandemic is what one needs to really know true love; friendships that lasts.
For this, I am extremely grateful. And I am also grateful for the extra time that this gives me with my family – time that I would have lost amidst the daily duties, and also the noise and commotion of the normal lives we used to have. Sometimes, we annoy each other; sometimes, the oppressiveness of this pandemic frustrates and depresses us. But over the last months, I have learnt to re-assessing what’s essential for happiness.
One year since the outbreak of the coronavirus, four months since I was tested positive COVID-19 and being a “Covid long hauler” - there will be challenges ahead - it is naive to think otherwise. Perhaps using this time to reflect on what matters the most; life needs to be more than our career and profession. Covid has helped me to put things in perspective.
We need to learn, we need to grow, we need to build our relationships, we need to build that personal balance sheet that goes beyond work.
Please take care of yourselves.
Martin Vogt
✭Explore. Dream. Discover.✭