Happiness in the time of COVID
It’s hard to believe that we are closing in on one year of the pandemic. At the same time, it has felt like years since we lived life as we knew it. I recently listened to a podcast with Simon Sinek who declared that he no longer counts 2020 as a year. He just removed it from the calendar and regards it as the year that wasn’t. I can relate.
Life changed so dramatically for me on March 7th when my professional life came to a grinding halt. As someone who traveled 2–3 times per month for work, the adjustment to being stuck in one place was challenging, to say the least. In the first few weeks, like most people, I hung on to the belief that this was a short-term disruption of my normal life. Then months passed and it felt like I was walking in quicksand, never finding steady footing. Days bled into each other with the uncertainty of what would happen next. After 6 months, my mind began shifting and I realized that I was now living my life very differently and the pining for the hectic rush of business travel, mindlessly moving from planes to ubers to hotels and back had waned. The frantic pace of coming home, unpacking and often repacking just days later to visit another city, to stay in another nondescript hotel was no longer an absence in my life. The void was slowly closing as each week ticked by. As the clock struck midnight on December 31, I could barely recall how the previous year had begun.
A year ago, my life revolved around airline and hotel status. So much of my mental energy was focused on whether I would receive an upgrade or achieve premiere status so that I could luxuriously wait for my next flight in the comfort of an airport lounge rather than desperately search for an open seat and charger for my phone. Social distancing wasn’t a thing and the only thing that unnerved me was having to be squashed in a middle seat in coach. I was irritated when someone around me sneezed or coughed because catching a cold was detrimental to my ability to work effectively. I filled every minute of every day with work and reading for work and podcasts for work and thinking about how little time I had to do anything but work. I was on overdrive every single moment of every single day.
Now that the pandemic has forced me to shift, I devote my thinking energy to more important matters like what does success look like for me in this new era. As a Generation X woman entering the workforce in the late 80s, I was caught at the tail end of the Baby Boomer takeover of the workplace. The corner office was still a thing. We didn’t yet enjoy the pleasures of technology and, in my early career, I spent more hours than I care to remember sitting in front of a telex machine sending messages to our clients abroad. In those early days, I was focused on making more money, getting a better title, having a window in my office so I could put plants on the windowsill, and striving to climb as high as possible on the corporate ladder. As a young woman, I never considered the impact of marriage and kids on my journey and, being very career-focused, I wasn’t about to let anything get in my way.
I was fortunate enough to start a family at a time when work-life balance was becoming a real topic of conversation. While 8 months pregnant with my second child, I was offered a job at Working Mother magazine and believed I had hit the jackpot. I was at the epicenter of change for women in the workplace and would be able to enjoy the benefits of a conscious organization as well as influence other companies to do right by their women. I pushed my way up, staking claim of work that was defining my career. Success meant more power, more direct reports, more access to the senior leaders at other organizations that would help open doors for me.
When my children were finishing up elementary school, I realized that I had to shift. Suddenly, success was about finding balance. I had made money, traveled, sat before senior executives and had my voice heard. But the ache inside of me was to have more access to my children so I could guide them through the trials and tribulations of adolescence- not by phone or text from a faraway city. I created my own consulting practice so I could be closer and attain that ungettable get — balance. As time progressed, however, I was back on the road, traveling more than I’d like and then I cofounded a startup because the ache to have career success never quelled. I loved my kids and wanted to be present in their lives but I couldn’t quiet the need to achieve more.
Then it was 8 years later and a pandemic hit. And I got divorced. And my older son left for college.
Who was I?
Was I successful?
Was I happy?
Was I fulfilled?
These were questions that sat unanswered for many months. I had lots of good distractions. I contracted Covid so I was able to not think about my happiness and fulfillment as I struggled to stay out of the hospital and heal my fragile body. Then my son decided to study from home in the fall semester so I had to establish a new relationship with this adult man living in my house. My younger son was entering 11th grade and suddenly it was time to focus on all the rites of passage that come along with turning 17 — drivers’ license, college prep, burgeoning independence. Then I met a man and was suddenly in a new relationship. Plus, we were in a pandemic and I was a business owner struggling to keep afloat. Who has time to think about happiness and success?
But one day, in the quiet of the day before the kids were clunking around the house and the emails started pouring in, I sat in my chair and asked myself, “Are you happy?”
Today, everything is different for me. I rarely give any thought to my miles or points. In fact, the idea of heading to an airport makes my stomach turn. Now I meditate and take online courses. I am learning how to play the piano. I spend time with my teenage son. I cook. I exercise. I watch tv and read for pleasure. I do the New York Time crossword puzzle while enjoying my coffee every morning. I am present. I am alive. I am joyful.
I know I am not alone in the journey of figuring out what life looks like on this side of the pandemic. Many of us are redefining happiness and success. For women — many of whom have been forced to put aside their careers to help with the care and schooling of their children — this is particularly true. Perhaps, like me, the absence of the distractions and noise that our old lives so kindly provided, allowing us to march along like lemmings, opened up a portal to explore the question of happiness. Perhaps the mental anguish caused by isolation, loss of loved ones, or the simple desire to hug someone is the catalyst to revisit purpose and meaning in your life. Maybe it is the realization that our lives are tenuous. Never did we ever imagine that we could be shut down in the way we have. From one side of the world to the other, people have had to adapt to seismic shifts in their lives.
In the end, as we reach the one year anniversary, I am hopeful and inspired because nearly every day I talk to someone who shares the same sentiment as me. They are grateful for the pandemic. While the loss of lives is unfathomable and the economic impact will affect our society for many years forward, our society has had to readjust and many of us have realized that we have been given a gift of exploration. We have been able to hit the pause button and ask ourselves “Are we happy?”
How about you? Has your definition of success changed? What have you learned about yourself in the last 12 months?
