Pandemic note to self

Calendars filled with “Join Zoom Meeting” links

Camera rolls filled with video-call screenshots of “I miss you” faces

Shopping carts filled with clothes you would wear “when this is all over”

Chat boxes filled with wistful yet confident travel and catch-up plans

Notification bars filled with news that makes your heart skip multiple beats

Minds filled with uncertainty about tomorrow, the day after, and the next

And hearts filled with faith that however tomorrow will be, alright we’ll be

Since the only way you’re exposed to the external world these days is through your screens, the only way you keep up with your extended community of fellow bipods is through their social media screams, it’s dangerously easy to get sucked into their unrealistic highlight reels, compare them with your current glamourless life that doesn’t seem to go anywhere beyond the couch scenes, a life where the only things that seem to multiply are the open chrome tabs, thumb scrolls, and proverbial hamster wheels.

You are teetering too close to the edge of the vicious cycle of comparison, self-loathing, and self-destruction. And as easy it is to fall over the edge and succumb to the abyss, it is equally easy to pull yourself far away from it too.

Awareness.

Keep a check on your thoughts. Keep a filter on, every time you watch the Instagram influencer flaunting their quarantine fitness routine, when the Twitter tycoon throws out an informative, yet humble-bragging thread on building their thriving startup, or when the LinkedIn thought leader writes an emoji, hashtags, and profile tags-ridden post on their latest spanking new job promotion.

Keep that filter on, to remind you that you are your own entity, living your own life, writing your own story, that’s going to be nothing like any other story out there.

Keep that filter on, to reiterate that what you deem as success and failure are but artificial constructs ingrained in your brain right from childhood. They are not the real deal. They are not the truth.

So instead of shrinking yourself to fit into those tiny, cramped, overcrowded societal moulds, allow yourself to inhale more oxygen. Untangle your veins. Grow into the biggest ever being you can be.

Find that feeble yet persistent voice that keeps telling you what you really need. Quieten the noise around. Silence the notifications.

Hush. Quieter. Pin-drop silence.

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.

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Now, do you hear it?

There.

Listen to that.

Keep following that.

Now, you’re in the best hands.