Pausing in the diary transiting and reflecting, thinking, meeting, has become a more than necessary, urgent task. A commitment to be able to assimilate what is happening and what role we assume in this maelstrom that has turned the world upside down, bringing everything to a reality never before known (except in apocalyptic books).
That look inward, towards oneself, so that we can see ourselves in this new certainty that has become everyday life.
This is where the pandemic appears: a crisis that has stopped the world, beyond languages, races, traditions, flags, and in which everyone has experienced a total change in their life, their routines and customs, especially social ones. A time when our work schedule began to invade personal and family times with tasks and meetings, making the day and week an insufficient and limited unit of measure. A reality where the only certainty is uncertainty and now.
This has involved a flow of emotions that assaulted us, showing our emotionality. We can no longer program and live in the anxiety of tomorrow or stay in yesterday’s melancholy, because everything happens too fast and the assembly of emotions reminds us that we are still alive and there is no minute to lose. Even now, “nows” are all we have and we can’t let them slip through our fingers.
Then, we pounce on the nets, seeking to regain the human warmth, the magic of spontaneous laughter, the pleasure of casual conversations and the excitement of that shared coffee that now translates into an emoticon. Social but clearly not emotional distance. More than ever we need these networks, that humanity, which give meaning to our day to day, to that which is essentially invisible to the eyes.
We are at a time when for our well-being we need to make sense of who we are and do again. Back to the origin, the core, yourself and yours. Something like a sightseeing or inland trip. But the complexity of dealing with that emotional tsunami and managing it is a big challenge. Clearly, we have felt deep down: fear, sadness, sorrow, anguish, frustration, longing, despair.
Our lights and shadows have come out in passing and all this with this emotional cocktail that – in moments – leaves us perplexed and paralyzed, or leads to a brutal overflow. In the gloom we were intercepted by emotions that we had so subordinate to the urgent that we came to consider them an by-room, but they were clearly anything but that. Thus, this pandemic made us see, feel and even reach the bottom of the hand of sadness in order to let go. Let go to get up, to go on, to persist.
It is there, in the crisis, in pain, that resilience arises. An indispensable value in the present times. A gift that has taken center stage and rightly so. For the crisis is, it came and is staying; but it is the opportunity, our alternative, to stop along the way, look at what we have done, how we have been living, what our priorities have been and decide what life we want to live. Rediscover ourselves, reinvent ourselves and re-enjoy what we do, pause and slowly savor the moments that encourage us, learn to climb walls instead of crying in front of them, taking them as obstacles. Nurture the miracle of the divergent, and address the possibility from the knot.
It does not mean that it is easy, or that we do not recognize its difficulty, but only that we decided to grow from it and live it from the opportunity and not the lack.
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
