Positivity out of covid times.

BnB

bitofabind wrote: »

Being able to stop and breathe and realise what is ACTUALLY important. The opportunity to re-evaluate has been the biggest thing for me.

I was a hamster on a wheel before COVID, busy corporate job in a big city, hopping on and off planes, "friends" that weren't friends, drinking too much, not sleeping or eating properly, devoting my life to a job I half liked in a city that stressed me out.

Since Covid, I've been WFH remotely and mostly from my hometown, I've spent more time with my family than I have since I was a teenager. When your parents are ageing that means everything. I've realised, do you know what, I don't love where I'm at in life, physically or mentally, and with that I've made a series of life changes including moving country, meeting my partner and (next month) quitting my job.

I'm very lucky to be healthy, without financial worry and I know that's huge. And it's also made me question, if it did end tomorrow, could I say I lived the life I wanted to live? And that's triggered such a change in mindset and some big environmental changes for me too.

Amen to all that.

My Hamster wheel probably looked a bit different to yours, but - a hamster wheel it was for sure.

I was a bit of an office junkie. I could have worked at home a bit more but I was (in my own head) stuck to the office. It took me a bit of time to get used to working from home but now I just love it. Finished work at 5 or 6 and still have a long evening in front of me to do as I please as opposed to arriving in the door at 7 or 8 knackered.

I've also learned to appreciate the beautiful place I live again. I've lived here for 40 years but had probably taken it for granted. I love nothing more now than heading out for a walk on a cold winters night enjoying the stunning views around here.

....but still though.... I have to say...... I feckin' murder a pint.....!!!!!

Andrewf20

There have been studies that suggest people would chose pain over boredom and its boredom that seems to be affecting alot of people. There is a tedium in having options curtailed. People end up in the endless rut of watching TV and going for walks, or trying to entertain young kids in the house all day due to crap weather outside.

1 positivity is the loss of the morning & evening rush hour traffic. Absolutely maddening levels of traffic in the big cities back pre covid. Its actually starting to feel like a long time since we had that.

tscul32

My 15 year old is celebrating the likely cancellation of his junior cert. That's his biggest positive.

HBC08

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I live abroad and they're going to want for nothing.

Except for a sound Aunt/Uncle.

SeaMermaid

Andrewf20 wrote: »

There have been studies that suggest people would chose pain over boredom and its boredom that seems to be affecting alot of people. There is a tedium in having options curtailed. People end up in the endless rut of watching TV and going for walks, or trying to entertain young kids in the house all day due to crap weather outside.

1 positivity is the loss of the morning & evening rush hour traffic. Absolutely maddening levels of traffic in the big cities back pre covid. Its actually starting to feel like a long time since we had that.

I stopped relying on the TV for entertainment long before Covid. I felt that there was something missing in my life. Life was all work and play. I never felt fulfilled going home after a long day in work and watching TV for entertainment. I took up a hobby and I'm all the more better for it. It kept me sane all year. I breezed through the lockdowns only really missing the local hotel and restaurant.

You can feel people are at the end of their tether with boredom. I really hate the complaint of boredom from some people. It's really petty. There's always something to do. Like jobs and odd ends. Find something to do to fill in your time and occupy your mind like baking or sewing or reading or art or music.

JustAThought

Andrewf20 wrote: »

There have been studies that suggest people would chose pain over boredom and its boredom that seems to be affecting alot of people. There is a tedium in having options curtailed. People end up in the endless rut of watching TV and going for walks, or trying to entertain young kids in the house all day due to crap weather outside.

1 positivity is the loss of the morning & evening rush hour traffic. Absolutely maddening levels of traffic in the big cities back pre covid. Its actually starting to feel like a long time since we had that.

The endless rut of having children and now being forced to pay attention to and mind and care for them.

Y - there will far better standards of discipline and parenting when this is over. Big bonus for those who have hd to endure the ‘ignore them’ parents that let their kids scream and run amuck for years. Bonus for society.

Potential-Monke

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh absolutely. I have a million cousins and the majority of them are strangers to me. Your phrasing just struck me as a bit cold, that its a positive nothing having to bother with two little kids.

It's a positive having not to bother with kids at all in general. Don't like them, don't want them, don't want to entertain other peoples. Not everyone likes kids, or finds what kids do entertaining, or cute, or any of that bollocks. They're smelly, noisey, needy and sometimes down right stupid (although that's mostly a parenting defect imo). Anything "new" they learn that they just have to tell you about you most likely already know and, personally, I don't care. So less kids around is a definite positive for me!

That and I haven't so much as had a sniffle in the last 12 months. Gone from monthly cold or chest infection to no issues at all. Major positive, and my reason for not going back into an office once this is over. I've said to management as much, there is no need for me to go back in and start sharing desks and computers and mice and monitors and keyboads that some other dirty prick has pawed his horrible germ infected snot covered digits over.

It has also reinforced my belief that having a social life can be more of a negative than a positive, and the hermit life is the way forward. While loads of people are having a hard time adjusting to listening to their own minds for once, I'm loving it. Shopping is easier, travel (when required) rarely results in being stuck in traffic, no social events that you feel compelled to attend, no BS chit chat with "colleagues", no multiple expensive weddings or birthday/anniversary parties, no (lackof)FUNerals. And no requirement to sit in a work room with people you don't like listen to some office junkie tell me how to do my job better.

I do miss going to a mates house to play D&D, playing digitally is not the same, but they also had a kid so that's over anyway. It's a great time to be an introverted gamer!

ancapailldorcha

Potential-Monke wrote: »

It's a positive having not to bother with kids at all in general. Don't like them, don't want them, don't want to entertain other peoples. Not everyone likes kids, or finds what kids do entertaining, or cute, or any of that bollocks. They're smelly, noisey, needy and sometimes down right stupid (although that's mostly a parenting defect imo). Anything "new" they learn that they just have to tell you about you most likely already know and, personally, I don't care. So less kids around is a definite positive for me!

That and I haven't so much as had a sniffle in the last 12 months. Gone from monthly cold or chest infection to no issues at all. Major positive, and my reason for not going back into an office once this is over. I've said to management as much, there is no need for me to go back in and start sharing desks and computers and mice and monitors and keyboads that some other dirty prick has pawed his horrible germ infected snot covered digits over.

It has also reinforced my belief that having a social life can be more of a negative than a positive, and the hermit life is the way forward. While loads of people are having a hard time adjusting to listening to their own minds for once, I'm loving it. Shopping is easier, travel (when required) rarely results in being stuck in traffic, no social events that you feel compelled to attend, no BS chit chat with "colleagues", no multiple expensive weddings or birthday/anniversary parties, no (lackof)FUNerals. And no requirement to sit in a work room with people you don't like listen to some office junkie tell me how to do my job better.

I do miss going to a mates house to play D&D, playing digitally is not the same, but they also had a kid so that's over anyway. It's a great time to be an introverted gamer!

Thanks for this.

My sister had her wedding a bit before Christmas in the window where I could go home so I did for that. I don't know if the christening has the same level of importance.

I live in a houseshare and it'll be several years before my niece/nephew will be able to form coherent sentences. I just don't see how it matters whether or not I spend time with them.

On the social side, I think it's quality over quantity which means that things get more difficult as you have to go to a ton of meetups if you've not already got a circle of friends or your friends have settled down and aren't as available as they used to be.

I'd be the same in that I'm an introvert and a gamer though I've banned myself from my beloved strategy games for lent. Don't care for buying clothes online but I work in a lab so I do have to leave the house for work so I'm not getting cabin fever either.

byhookorbycrook

Our first ever Christmas in our own home .
People looking out for their neighbours more .
Greater appreciation of small pleasures.

Potential-Monke

Potential-Monke wrote: »

It's a positive having not to bother with kids at all in general. Don't like them, don't want them, don't want to entertain other peoples. Not everyone likes kids, or finds what kids do entertaining, or cute, or any of that bollocks. They're smelly, noisey, needy and sometimes down right stupid (although that's mostly a parenting defect imo). Anything "new" they learn that they just have to tell you about you most likely already know and, personally, I don't care. So less kids around is a definite positive for me!

That and I haven't so much as had a sniffle in the last 12 months. Gone from monthly cold or chest infection to no issues at all. Major positive, and my reason for not going back into an office once this is over. I've said to management as much, there is no need for me to go back in and start sharing desks and computers and mice and monitors and keyboads that some other dirty prick has pawed his horrible germ infected snot covered digits over.

It has also reinforced my belief that having a social life can be more of a negative than a positive, and the hermit life is the way forward. While loads of people are having a hard time adjusting to listening to their own minds for once, I'm loving it. Shopping is easier, travel (when required) rarely results in being stuck in traffic, no social events that you feel compelled to attend, no BS chit chat with "colleagues", no multiple expensive weddings or birthday/anniversary parties, no (lackof)FUNerals. And no requirement to sit in a work room with people you don't like listen to some office junkie tell me how to do my job better.

I do miss going to a mates house to play D&D, playing digitally is not the same, but they also had a kid so that's over anyway. It's a great time to be an introverted gamer!

We are all different and that's something I very much accept. One thing I find interesting about people who dislike, not just indifferent to, actually dislike children, is that they were once that which they now care nothing for. It just seems like a strange disconnect.

As for the listening to our own minds, I think that's a separate issue to finding the restrictions difficult. I love my own company and can sit in quiet for hours with just my thoughts and feelings for company. It's something that I think is really important. Others are always trying to escape themselves be it with housework or their job or "I'm always on the go".

The pandemic wouldn't necessarily have made a big change there. The above may still find their distractions and I will still be able to sit in silence but absolutely hate my freedoms taken from me.

ebbsy

Well my right wrist has certainly got stronger ?

Junkyard Tom

I have learned to play piano, cook fine foods, built a garden shed from pallet wood, converted and old van to a camper, I have read the classics, written poetry that has been published, and I have become a world champion compulsive liar.

Random Account

I’ve saved a good amount of cash that I’d never have expected to have saved. So I’m grateful for that. I’ve got to spend more time with my kids. I’ve spent more time with my wife than ever. I’ve learnt to appreciate what I had and what freedoms I’ve had. Also appreciated to spend more time with extended family and my parents than ever. Think COVID even though it has been tough had opened our eyes for the better and made us reevaluate life’s priorities more

physioman

Not seeing Greta Thunberg on the tv and knowing her parents didn't make as much money as they hoped in the past year by exploiting the poor child

Buddy Bubs

Have had a decent bit of sex during the working day

Samsonsmasher

SeaMermaid wrote: »

I stopped relying on the TV for entertainment long before Covid. I felt that there was something missing in my life. Life was all work and play. I never felt fulfilled going home after a long day in work and watching TV for entertainment. I took up a hobby and I'm all the more better for it. It kept me sane all year. I breezed through the lockdowns only really missing the local hotel and restaurant.

You can feel people are at the end of their tether with boredom. I really hate the complaint of boredom from some people. It's really petty. There's always something to do. Like jobs and odd ends. Find something to do to fill in your time and occupy your mind like baking or sewing or reading or art or music.

It's petty not to be able to go to work operate your business forced to live in meagre 350 a week not allowed to meet your relatives and friends go for a coffee or a drink or go to the cinema or theatre or travel within your own country or abroad?
It's petty that these have been literally criminalized with the threat of fines and prosecution and imprisonment?
You do know we face mass business closures mass unemployment mass poverty and mass homelessness if this madness doesn't end and end soon?

Samsonsmasher

PUP was the biggest positive for me. Especially for the first lockdown (I'm now essential, but wasn't back then). I didn't realise how much I needed some time off work. I'm self employed and although I love my work, getting a steady (albeit lower) payment, every week, without having to go looking for it, and being able to just sit back and not have to do anything, was great.


Since returning to work, my workload has decreased a bit, but I reckon I'm glad of it, ultimately. I can see a lot of people not wanting to return to full time work, if they can avoid it.

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

It's petty not to be able to go to work operate your business forced to live in meagre 350 a week not allowed to meet your relatives and friends go for a coffee or a drink or go to the cinema or theatre or travel within your own country or abroad?
It's petty that these have been literally criminalized with the threat of fines and prosecution and imprisonment?
You do know we face mass business closures mass unemployment mass poverty and mass homelessness if this madness doesn't end and end soon?

Rabble rabble.

kippy

The Wizards Sleeve wrote: »

Practically everything around covid is so negative that it's exhausting for so many people. Everybody has had a different level of pain, loss and suffering during these covid times but I think it's safe to say everybody has suffered in some form with it.

Within all this negativity there still is some positives so I thought it might be nice to have a thread with a positive vibe to it where people can post positives that have come out of covid times for them. I know the list of positives mightn't be lengthy but no harm to try and spread some positivity during these times!

I'll start with a few sure.....

The option to work from home wasn't there for me before. I have two young kids and it's meant more time at home with them and my wife rather than being on the hamster wheel of rushing out the door in the morning to make the creche etc. and has been beneficial to us as a family.

The option of so many tasty takeaways that weren't there before! I feel bad for bar and restaurant owners with how badly stung they've been but I've huge admiration for the entrepreneurship of business owners in that sector and across other businesses too, how they've remodelled their businesses to suit the current environment. The resilience and creativity of people is another positive to take out of these times.

I'll give one more positive I've taken from these times and that's been stopping and taking stock. Things I had taken for granted, like having contact with my parents. It's easy with the pace of life sometimes to take things like that for granted but I think you can look at that as a positive out of these times. To have that space to reflect on what's important in life and appreciate it all the more when we get back to the good times.

I hope this thread can bring some positivity. Maybe there's one already. I probably should have checked first.
Anyways onwards and upwards. The good times will be back!...... eventually

Thing could always be far far worse. On an individual level that's how I look at the world.

Samsonsmasher

[Deleted User] wrote: »

PUP was the biggest positive for me. Especially for the first lockdown (I'm now essential, but wasn't back then). I didn't realise how much I needed some time off work. I'm self employed and although I love my work, getting a steady (albeit lower) payment, every week, without having to go looking for it, and being able to just sit back and not have to do anything, was great.


Since returning to work, my workload has decreased a bit, but I reckon I'm glad of it, ultimately. I can see a lot of people not wanting to return to full time work, if they can avoid it.








Rabble rabble.

The country is tens of billions in debt.

Who pays for you to sit on your backside with free money?

Oops!

Ted_YNWA

Mod
Let's not ruin a positive thread by descending in PUP/Social Welfare bashing tangent.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Wait! I have one!!

The thoughts of getting Covid and not being healthy enough to fight it has caused me to exercise more, eat healthier and take lots of vitamins

Even better is that if you are already eating healthier - most people likely do not have to bother wasting money on taking any supplemental vitamins at all and may in fact be causing more harm to themselves than good by doing it.

A couple of claims were made about Vitamin D earlier on the thread for example which simply are not supported by the research.

But if my anecdotal experience is in any way representative - a lot of people do seem to be experimenting with food at the moment. The amount of commute time saved by home office is being put by some people into cooking "real" food where they might have previously relied on convenience food - fast food - or heavily processed foods.

As someone who has had cooking as a primary hobby for over 10 years now I am getting quite a lot of calls and queries from friends and family on recipes - food ideas - and cooking tips. And it makes me happy to see.

I think Joe Rogan has also been pointing it out but it is interesting that worse outcomes for Covid have been linked to things like lack of fitness and obesity. But while our world governments have been pushing things like social distancing and face masks - all effective in their own way don't get me wrong - few of them seem to have taken this chance to push positive health messages too.

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

It's petty not to be able to go to work operate your business forced to live in meagre 350 a week not allowed to meet your relatives and friends go for a coffee or a drink or go to the cinema or theatre or travel within your own country or abroad?
It's petty that these have been literally criminalized with the threat of fines and prosecution and imprisonment?
You do know we face mass business closures mass unemployment mass poverty and mass homelessness if this madness doesn't end and end soon?

The user you are replying to did not say _any_ of the things in your post here though?

They simply said claiming "boredom" is "petty". I grant that that is a pretty poor way to describe it and I would not have said it that way myself. But it is not _so_ poor as to warrant your reply I think. All the things you listed are legitimate awful things we should rightfully be concerned about. But nothing to do with boredom.

Not sure how I would put it better though - because I tend not to moan about other people's moans But claiming to be "bored" in this world to me is not "petty". It is more just - alien to me. It is just a position / head space I can not understand any more because I simply can not get myself into that position / head space.

If anything I have found there is so much to do in this life - much of it entirely free - and not enough time to do all of it - that I could even envy people a bit of boredom from time to time.

But like SeaMermaid I got rid of television entirely years ago. I wonder if this has something to do with it? Is TV so stultifying that it leaves many people not sure what else to do with themselves at first? Perhaps the first steps from boredom to finding something to do with your time are harder than every other step after that where suddenly one finds rather than there being nothing to do - there is way too much.

I hope one of the "positivity out of covid times" points therefore is that people explore parts of life they might otherwise have not found cause to - and find new enjoyments and goals in life they might not otherwise have.

Iguarantee

jimgoose wrote: »

All this bollocks about reflecting and taking stock...

There's nothing good about this situation. It is deadly dangerous, and highly unpleasant for a lot of people. Economies, this one included, will take years to recover, if some of them ever do. Thousands more will die before we see the back of this. People's mental health is going down the tubes. We can't even bury the dead properly.

One of the worst things about it is that the media literally Never. Shuts. The Fuck. Up. About. It.

Personally, I'm one of the lucky ones. My income hasn't been affected, and it's been an opportunity to brush up on my cooking and let rip my inner antisocial bastard. But I can't get into the car, go to work, and come away out of it in the evening leaving it after me. I can't go for a pint. I can't hop into said car and trundle out to the Viaduct for a Farmer's Dinner. Calling into he local Centra is like something out of The Stand.

Positivity my arse.

I can empathise with the antisocial side to this. I’m happy not meeting as many people

I don’t miss the pub or any of that stuff but I do miss training with friends and the whole physical activity side of it. I’ve kept busy with other exercise but I’m still unsure why gyms and classes are prohibited after this long in level 5.

The positivity, in my opinion, is more quality time with my own immediate family. The negativity is that the government are a shower of clowns.

whisky_galore

Robbing places is easier, what with everyone masked up.