A first-person monologue (from a short inspirational film) reflecting on life during the COVID-19 pandemic. The speaker recounts converting an empty office into a workspace, observes how lockdowns and masks remove human warmth, and urges listeners to resist negativity by focusing on gratitude, reconnecting with people, controlling what they can (sleep, exercise, attention), and practicing mindful positivity.
Over 10 million reported negativity is the real life. Yesterday marked the one year anniversary from being us in like this purpose built facility. And it was a lot of work to get this project up on the ground. Like we got this building, we gutted it, it was a bunch of different offices, we stripped it all back. I kept it a surprise for the team because we wanted to do like a big unveil a couple of months later really was when this pandemic hit. It's very interesting to see a place when it's nothing, like it's an empty shell and to be able to put a couple of desks in here, throw computers in here, and bring human beings into it and watch it breathe life. When you see it all set up, but that life is removed from the office, it becomes like a concrete shell. And I think that when you see that, you realize how important culture is, how important community is, and you realize like that human beings, we're just very, very tribal people. Well, Victoria is waking to an unpleasant figure this morning. The state's death toll now exceeding 400. Australia is tonight a step closer to the so called silver bullet. But any optimism has been dashed by the news. Restrictions could be in place for another year at least. The recourse of it is going to be so much more substantial than how many lives the actual pandemic gets. You know, we're in stage four lockdown. Everyone has to wear a mask. Like people feel almost when they're wearing a mask that it's like they're online and that they don't need to show that human warmth and they don't need to acknowledge people. And even the way that conversations are being framed, oh, I'm just fucking sick of it. I hate this. Or like this is annoying or this guy or fuck that. Negativity is the real virus here. Like attention is being hijacked and negativity is what's being fed. You know, we've been in this situation for five months now, and we're never ever gonna get those five months back. Those five months are gone, right? And if we're in this for another five months to whatever the degree of that is, we are also not gonna get that time back. So I think that rather than just focusing on the absence of things, focus on what it is that you can get out of the situation. The people that you can connect with, the small things that in your busy life you lose appreciation for and they just become so much sweeter. The only thing good to do in this time is to focus on what the positives are, as cliche as that might sound, it's something that people just rattle off in loose conversations, but it's not something that they practice as mindfulness. And when you actually do that and you think about, like, how grateful you are for the things that you do still have, even though so much has been taken away, that's like you're coming from a place that's so much more positive and that you're going to actually do good from, rather than being in that negative foreign. That, like, there would be a day where you would be with someone that you love, right. Or you would be with your family, or you would be with your friends, yet you would feel the need is more important to go on your phone than to be with those people. Like, that is basically like you're looking at attention as a currency. You're choosing to pay that currency on a telephone and on virtual friends. Then the love of your life, or then your children, or then your best friends. Whatever headline can hijack the attention better than the other one. Each publication is saying something more outrageous than the other just to get the eyeballs. And don't spend your time and energy focusing on that or all the time, because it's not going to ever put you in a state where you're positive. Right. If anything, you should just use this time to connect with people that you haven't done. And don't look at what the next negative headline is. Look at who is it in your life that you haven't spoken to in 12 months? Or who is it you could help pick up the phone and say, how are you doing? Perception is everything. And if you just constantly are thinking about being alone and wanting life to just return back to normal and being frustrated by the situation that we're in, like, that doesn't add any value or it doesn't solve anything. Like, you're just. You're coming at it from that victim mentality, right? Where it's like, well, those things are all apparent. And regardless of whether or not I don't like it, it's not going to change any. I would urge anybody to find a positive news story that's going on right now. Like, it's that saying where, you know, worrying is like a rocking chair. Like, it keeps you occupied, but it takes you nowhere. And it's the same thing with this whole situation. Like, you know, being anxious or being upset or being agitated by what's going on. Yeah, it's gonna keep you occupied, but what is it keeping you occupied with? It's keeping you occupied with negative self talk and you just get into like a vicious down cycle. And I just keep coming back to the statement of control what you can control. There's a lot of stuff that I can't control right now, but there's a lot of stuff that I can control. What time I go to bed, what time I wake up, how hard I work out, what I focus my attention on, what are the thoughts that consume my mind. And you know, it's in times like this where you really do need to think about what it is that you're grateful for and the things that you do have and the small little things that you can do that are going to make a difference. Picking up the telephone and calling up your family, calling that cousin who you haven't spoken to in a year or your friend or whoever it might be. But these are still things that are within our power that we can do, right? If anything, you'd hope that those relationships, you'd value them more than ever right now. I think that being really mindful of actually what it is that you see still have that you're really appreciative of and making conscious efforts to focus on those things. And again, coming from a place of wanting to give.
