Reverting to pandemic habits

I find that after a couple of months of getting out, seeing people, and really enjoying it, I'm reverting to old habits from the early quarantine era -- not leaving the house much, not exercising much, and not engaging the world beyond my driveway all that much. I'm vaxxed, but the pandemic is raging once again and the old habits kept me alive for more than a year. 

But I've got to be more intentional about all this. I don't want to go back to the old ways.

Comments

Ashok said…
You're raising the excellent question of how not to slip into the worst habits. I've been having success with not trying to overwhelm myself with "all the good habits, all at once." A walk before breakfast, a trip to a coffee shop I like once a week--those things help as long as they're regular. And they're small. But they act like anchors for the rest of my day/mood.
August 10, 2021 at 7:16 PM
Joel said…
I've built some good habits over the last year, but for whatever reason I've slipped out of them lately. Need to reestablish.
August 10, 2021 at 8:39 PM
Ashok said…
Part of the problem is that one does need to feel the reward for good habits, and the pandemic is punishing in a world where rewards were hard to come by in the first place.

That raises the question of happiness in a way I've never really thought about before.
August 11, 2021 at 6:11 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why John Brascia is the secret hero of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."

Image
Just finished the annual family viewing of "White Christmas." So good. And the movie's secret weapon? John Brascia. Who's that? This guy dancing with Vera-Ellen: Here's my theory: John Brascia's role in this movie makes no sense at all. Danny Kaye is Vera-Ellen's love interest in the movie. He should be, by the usual logic of Hollywood storytelling, her duet partner in all her big dances. Indeed, Kaye and Vera-Ellen have a lovely dance early in the movie: After that, though, it's Brascia — who utters no lines in the movie  (see the comments below) — who is the main dance partner. It's aided by the show-within-a-show conceit of the movie: They're practicing for an upcoming musical, you see. But again, this doesn't make a whole lotta sense... ...unless you consider this possibility: Brascia, and not Kaye, was the only dancer on set who could keep up with Vera-Ellen. Yes, Kaye was enormously gifted as a dancer. But he was alrea
Read more

So I hate my fucking colostomy

Warning: This is really gross. When the doctors came to me that Saturday afternoon and told me I was probably going to need surgery, I got weepy. It wasn't the surgery itself that brought tears to my eyes—though knowing that my belly was about to be sliced open wasn't exactly comforting—but what the docs told me was waiting on the other side: a colostomy bag. Surgery scared me. The colostomy offended me. There was my vanity, first off all. Who gets colostomies after all? Old guys, that's who, grampas who've had their sexual day in the sun and don't have to worry about looking good and being attractive to the opposite sex. (I'm married and faithful, but I don't want to be repulsive to other women; this made me feel like I'd be repulsive to both my wife and other women.) Young, virile men don't have colostomies. I'm not young exactly—I'm 38—but I suspected the surgery was a too-early arrival in the precincts of the elderly. Beyond that
Read more

Mr. Mom Chronicles: Working At Home

Image
I'm in the middle of typing out an e-mail to a source on a story when my two-year-old boy climbs up into my lap with a book, "Put Me in the Zoo." "Booky?" he asks. This is slightly annoying -- I've got work to do . But the boy is part of my work, too. If I'm going to be a stay-at-home-dad-slash-freelance-writer, then I can't neglect the dad part of the equation. Even if doing so would make the writing part of that equation much easier. So I read the book. Tobias climbs down, retrieves another tome and brings it to me. "Booky?" "No, son. I've read you one, and I've got to get this done. Can you read it to yourself?" Tobias doesn't like the idea. He raises the book high over his head, then slams it down to the ground. Then he toddles off. We're one week into this experiment -- ok, we're a week into my new way of living life -- and it's clear that this is the battle I'm going to have to fight e
Read more