Am I Just Lazy? (No)

So you have survived a pandemic working from home, but you didn’t clean the garage, renovate anything, or learn to play the guitar. Looking back, maybe it’s hard to actually think of any major project you accomplished during the pandemic, and you’re wondering why you didn’t do more. You don’t have the “excuse” of not having had the time.

It’s tempting, isn’t it, to think that if we had a year to work from home we would be able to dedicate countless hours to self and home improvement? With no commute, no restaurants or bars or concerts or museums or classes to go to, and nowhere to travel, we could finally get to all those projects we’ve been putting off.

We internalize productivity from a young age, to a point that we feel in our bones that mere survival is never enough. We feel that we must constantly optimize, increase our output, and get bigger and better. Because idleness is one of our dominant culture’s worst transgressions, we tend to feel it even when that idleness is forced upon us.

So no, there is nothing at all wrong with you. What you are feeling is what a lot of us are feeling: the anxiety created when our lived experience does not fall in line with what we think our culture expects from us. The fact that our dominant culture does not account for pandemics – we have no frame of reference for the current situation – means that our thinking defaults to, “I should be productive.” But maybe you actually shouldn’t. We just don’t know.

We should all give ourselves a break. In the best of times, it’s much easier to make a resolution than to keep it. Often we are not as tough or resilient as we think we are, or expect ourselves to be. Though the crisis may be on the wane, its ripples may last for years. We’re on our way (but not there yet, by a long shot!) back to a version of normal that is mostly similar to what we were living in February of 2020, but nonetheless altered. Some will pick up right where they left off, but for others the changes have been nothing short of permanent and life-altering.

These initial steps back into former circles may be uncertain, awkward, or uncomfortable. The circles may have changed. People passed on; others moved away or moved in; jobs and circumstances changed.

Even in those moments where you take stock and say, “I’m ok,” most of us have been and remain in survival mode. There is no right way or wrong way to survive. We would do well to assume people did their best, and treat them – and ourselves – accordingly. That includes you.