In light of the COVID-19 pandemic I want to talk about taking a detour.
My life didn’t get better until I turned 35 and started my library job.
Shunted into the mental health system early in my recovery I was forced to take a detour.
Let me tell you a detour is not a dead-end. It’s a pit stop along the way to a different path.
Maybe you’re not supposed to get what you want quickly and painlessly.
That is the goal as I see it–to embrace the struggle for what it is– a learning of something you need to know in order to get what you want.
I care a lot that in this pandemic everything seems to have been put on hold. A sunny day can be harder to envision.
Sometimes where you start out isn’t where you should remain.
That is the ultimate purpose of a detour: to cement in your mind the one true path you must go down to be happy and fulfilled.
You don’t often figure out until you experience firsthand a setback the truth about who you are and where you should be going in life.
Again–I think of these things during the pandemic we’re living through. Of how it can seem like this is the end of everything–the end of your hopes and dreams for whatever you had hoped to achieve.
I say: use this time to engage in active reflection. Get out a notebook and sketch out what your goals will be when the pandemic is over.
Shore up your good feelings while you shelter in place.
Remember that after things get better there’s so much life for all of us to live.
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