Peace Over Panic in a Global Pandemic

 Admittedly, it’s been a long while since I’ve blogged, and if I'm being honest, I've allowed myself to get distracted. 

With today being panic awareness day, I thought it would be a good time to hop back on and share how it’s been going.

Firstly, there was and still is a pandemic that closed the city, country, and entire world Armeggeddon style, sending my anxiety through the roof! Asking myself questions like:

Would I still be employed after the lockdown is over?

Are my skills essential?

 Is Jesus coming, and if He is, am I ready? No judgment please #Iknowi’mnotalone.  

Needless to say, I obediently did as I was told. Stayed home, socially distanced, and sanitized while watching the bleak news reports from around the world tell of how thousands were holding onto a thread of their lives revealing that no country was prepared for what was/is a deadly virus. To make matters more complicated, the usual places to go for guidance and peace were closed like the rest of the world. Places like the local church that went online and, with every family looking out for them and theirs, the answers we desperately needed, we never really got. . Everything had changed, and it was scary. 

It's crazy to think that in just over a year anxiety, depression, and mental illness became less of a stigma as it ravaged the globe with the same viciousness as the covid-19 virus, with no discrimination of race, gender, or bank balance. 

Now, more than ever, the world needs hope! What do you do when it seems like your back is against the wall and your options are limited? 

For me, it took about 3 weeks into the nationwide lockdown to snap out of the spiral of despair and look for what resources I had. The main question that I needed answered was: 

1. If in the event I lose my job, do I have the skills to find another one? Which quite frankly, the answer was no. 

I looked for free courses and upskilled and, when I was done with one certificate, became so addicted to the dopamine that came from it, kept at it to eventually shift my focus to who I wanted to become, seizing the blessing of life. 

Nothing’s changed in the world. In fact, if you’re reading this now things are even more daunting than when we first heard about the “19” with variants sprouting up in what seems like every month as it evolves, adapts, and continues its carnage. 

What did change was my focus! Napoleon Hill said from my absolute favorite book, Think and Grow Rich, 

“There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.”

Today, I’ve started my own online side hustle after completing 4 Certificate courses in just under a year. And, though every day brings with it new anxieties and challenges, one thing this pandemic did teach me is, anxiety doesn’t have to have the final say - I do!  

On panic awareness day, I choose not to panic!