Finding Joy

No doubt this year has been full of huge changes across the world. With the onset of a world pandemic, it's virtually impossible to find someone who hasn't been affected. The whole paradigm of normality is in question, if ever there was a normal?

As a teacher, it's been especially difficult to nourish the young minds of my students given this change in contact. Social connections were non existent for some time as kids were told its no longer safe to be in their "safe" space of school. This has resulted in various fear and frustrations. Additionally parents have been in a unique position where they are forced to monitor their child's virtual education, and becoming teachers themselves without ever signing up for it.

The name of the game is adaptation. No doubt everyone of us has had to make some sort of shift to our "normal." Change is never easy, but it doesn't have to be torture either. Change is where growth happens.

If we keep doing what we have always done, we will get what we always got. I like to think of this new normal as an opportunity to be innovative in how we cultivate peace and growth amongst a dynamic that can seem perhaps suffocating in some circumstances. How can we find that balance, maintain connections with those we love, and stay the best versions of ourselves? That is the question I ask myself everyday.

There is no universal answer to this question, rather there is the knowledge that if nothing else, this time has augmented how so very precious our lives are, and we have the choice how we maintain safe and healthy in the capacity of the resources we have.