COVID Taught Us to Stay Home, But Not Fully Rest
We live in a society that prioritizes work. People are addicted to their work. It is praised to constantly be productive and cross off things from your to-do list. Saying you’re working all the time gives you a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
I don’t think a lot of people understood this before the COVID pandemic.
We just thought this was normal part of daily life. Whether it’s work or socializing, we always need to have something going on or it eats at our soul that we aren’t a productive part of society, aren’t popular enough, aren’t liked.
Our default way of being is to say we’re busy, to run from meeting to meeting and apologize for running late, and to always have something going on.
But before COVID, when we got sick, we were scolded or shamed into not coming into work. ‘Well, if it’s just a cold, you can’t be that sick.’ ‘You can still answer your email at home right?’
And then when you worked thru being sick, whether it was a cold or a migrane, you were praised. ‘Wow, I can’t believe you got it all done while you were sick AND everything else you have going on. You’re a real trooper, a star employee!’
And then when COVID hit, we were encouraged to stay home when we were feeling sick at all to keep others safe and make sure we didn’t get too sick.
But we weren’t encouraged to stop working.
The doctors and advisers during the beginning of the COVID pandemic encouraged people to work from home (if they could) so much that employers started scrambling to help their employees work from home. This allowed a lot of flexibility for people to start work when they wanted, to be able to home school their kids, to take care of family, and to save time by not commuting anymore.
But instead of encouraging us to stop working, it allowed us to work more hours and work all hours of the day by never having a start or end time for work.
The one good thing I thought would come out of COVID was that it was people would be encouraged to rest and get better when feeling sick.
But that’s not the case.
We are encouraged to stay home, yes. But if you are sick (with COVID or anything else) and are working from home, it doesn’t mean stop working. It means you must quarantine, so that you don’t get anyone else sick.
The work-aholoic attitude hasn’t gone away. We are encouraged to keep working thru illness. We are not encouraged to rest.
There needs to be two kinds of definitions of ‘stay home’, defined as:
don’t get sick or get anyone else sick, and
resting, getting better, healing, do not disturb
In our current society, we don’t encourage or prioritize ‘resting, getting better, healing, do not disturb’.
We prioritize ‘keep going, push yourself, be productive, if you’re sitting down you’re not contributing to society, be on call ALL THE TIME for anyone, be available for texting and calls and work and favors, never take time for yourself or if you do you’re selfish and not contributing to society.’
I was so hoping this would change with COVID, and I think our attitude as a planet slowed down for a few months in the beginning of the lockdown. The air and waterways were cleaner, there was less energy and oil consumption worldwide, people spent time outside. I think some people really did enjoy the slow down and got the impact the humans have on the planet with our fast paced society.
But then it went right back to ‘normal’. But I wanted to keep living slowly and intentionally.
If you want to stay slow too, make sure you take the time to rest, not just when you’re sick, but every day. Don’t be on call all the time. Prioritize your sleep and your breaks and your mind and your time. If you don’t enjoy the time you have now, what are you working so much for anyway?