Pandemic over, now what?

It was May 15, 2023 when the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 is no longer a global emergency. I sat with this for a second and more recently thought about it when I took into consideration my place at this moment in time. Many of us throughout the pandemic can be known to have declared to ourselves and our close friends that we were going to come out of the pandemic different than when we entered it. Well, think for a second here. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Has much of your life changed since surviving a global pandemic? I would beg to differ if you don't believe that it has, that it absolutely has!

Nothing about the life we experience and refrain from experiencing is the same. While most of this is forcibly applied, we have had to adapt. Yes, there are little to no masks worn anymore, but there is still an underlying caution that each of us still take when going through everyday activities. I think that we are more conscious of what we touch, what we eat, how we eat, how we travel, how we communicate, and how we tend to choose us. The physical distance and many times complete silence that we experienced caused us to truly come to know ourselves without constant distractions from the world- for some, this meant loneliness. If we were never in a place of knowing the what, who, and how it relates to our satisfaction, we definitely did going through this pandemic. For some that got to know themselves may have meant the ending of a marriage, which rose 34% in 2020 when compared to 2019. Ultimately, decisions about life and moving forward in life were made for some- conclusion or beginning.

Be it August of 2023, any day lived is a day to do it differently than yesterday. I know we've all heard that before, but it still remains the truth. I chose the photo of the vegetables because they truly marked a moment in my life life in which I decided to live differently. I simply chose me this month! Choosing me post this pandemic didn't happen prior to May but almost three years post the world gradually and professionally reopening for me in August 2020. That's right! Some of you had and still have the opportunity to fully remain home to work and make exceptions for when you engage professionally, but many of us were back to the grind of work being face-to-face. Anyway...back to me and what I was saying. My last blog post was November of 2020. I thought during that time that I had direction but was well out of a self-directed and purposeful life- I would have said intentional, but we clearly overuse that adverb. Here we are 33 months later, and I declared that I am a man who is living within his own designated boundaries and will be moving purposefully post pandemic. A desirable man is a man who knows when to choose him!