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Life Experiences

Speed of Life

I just finished watching a movie from the  novel “Life at These Speeds” by Jeremy Jackson. I was inspired to write something about it during this pandemic COVID19 because it really amazed me on how this high school athlete conquer his disastrous/traumatic experience and on how he overcome the dramatic loss in his life……

Traumatic experiences are like scars that causes difficulties in life but sometimes it leads to a new beginning.

I really can’t imagine life during this Corana Virus pandemic. Still waiting for the vaccines to come out so everyone will move forward in life in a normal way.(I know vaccines are not really the cure on these COVID19 Virus).

I know that life now during these Covid19 is not much related on the movie but I was just motivated to write about my experiences during this pandemic.

It is so hard in every individual to adjust in this kind of life (in this new normal thing). Most of us are stuck, no income and still confused on how to start all over again. For me, it is really a stressful and distressing experience I ever had in my entire life. I lost everything I had during this hard time. Business have been closed and source of income here in my place right now is so hard.

Because of the losses we experienced, speed of life now becomes slow due to C19 and here’s another UK’s new COVID 19 strain, most of us are struggling with life especially to those individual who had a hard time to cope with these kind of situation makes us depressed and hopeful.

Currently living in a rural area here in Philippines and it really needs a lot of adjustments (been living here almost 8 months already). Just missing the fast paced of life in the city. Moving to the province is really unexpected.

Some people say that simple living is better…… Yes, I want to live in a simple life but I just realized that simple living is not really simple. Just like cutting back some regularly and a hectic lifestyle like reducing consumption, simple diet like buying local products, growing your own food and starting being more self-sufficient, focusing on what is available around and doing some stuff that you really don’t like to do just like cooking on woods (need to cut woods or get some twigs and do some fire — it is so hard because I’m not good on putting fire on it ha-ha! It’s a good experience though –  good to be a girl scout in my elementary days). Another thing is when you want to take a bath, you need to do the old ways. No shower. You take a bucket (timba/balde in tagalog) and put water on it, use a dipper or pitcher (tabo in tagalog) to have a bath.

Living in the city always make me active and I don’t even have enough sleep. I always make myself busy but as a reward, I give myself a treat now and then. I always move and travel whenever I can to overwhelm my feeling even in the busiest days.

Now, living in the province is okay avoiding too much traffic and very noisy city but sometimes I really missed my pre-pandemic life in the city. I’m making myself busy here but it’s not easy to do the things that you never did before. As of now I’m slowly accepting the fact that we don’t always get what we want in life.

Days, weeks and months passed, slow paced of life in the province makes me appreciate simple living. Having an aha moment in these place makes me learn a lot of new things as I moved forward and experienced life changes.As I narrate earlier, simple life is not really simple. You have to give efforts too. It is not just as simple as that.

From day to day living, you still have a choice to push on or just make yourself stuck. It is still your decision to do what is good and important. Experiences every day is a choice to live because we have a lot of options on this planet. We are stuck sometimes on one path but life speeds will lead us to new beginning. Struggles and hard times is unavoidable but we still have choices to continue or regret in life.

I learned that life should be balance. We just need to go with the tempo of our existence. The slow paced of environment makes us realized that sometimes it needs to slow down and appreciate the little things around us and it will lead us to see a bigger picture – the wonderful ways on how to live in this world (wonderful world).

We as humans are totally different. We just need to be patient to ourselves. As the saying says “Nothing in nature blooms year round”. It’s ok to rest. Many of us have been looking for ways on how to feel good/better, to have a good source of income and to sustain our needs/wants but during this pandemic, it is really hard for some of us to maintain what we begin. We are searching for something that makes us productive and to support ourselves/ family and to live the way we want to be. We can still reach that planned goals but this is the time to pause for a while.Just remind ourselves that it’s not the endpoint. It is just a new beginning for a new journey that we never planned in  life (new, better and beautiful life).

Always be thankful and grateful for all the things that you are experiencing now because it helps you to push harder in order to get what you want to achieve. Embrace every situation, you can be slow today but who knows tomorrow will be greater and brighter. Take it easy. Don’t be too fast try to make it slowly. Time is free so live one day at a time because unplanned plans will teach us to cherish every moment and memories to enjoy in this slow paced of life.Relax. Once we lost  it we can never get it back so grab this opportunity to make life more meaningful.

Sometimes, even our best-laid plans don’t work out the way we intended. But if one plan fails, don’t lose hope–there is always another way to reach a solution. Don’t give up! – EntrepreneurMindset

Speed of life can be slow, fast or whatever pace of life it is, never be discourage just continually make progress. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

Fast and slow do more than just describe a rate of change. They are shorthand for ways of being, or philosophies of life. Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried, analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality. Slow is the opposite:  calm, careful, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity. It is about making real and meaningful connections – with people, culture, work, food, everything. The paradox is that slow does not always mean slow…It is also possible to do things quickly while maintaining a Slow frame of mind. – Carl Honoré

Categories
life lessons

The Pandemic Encounter

Corona virus outbreak has been spreading all over the world and everyone is experiencing different effects on this epidemic. It can be physical, mental and emotional health effects in every individual or it can be pandemic fatigue. According to Healthy Living of erienewsnow.com, pandemic fatigue means a person is tired of the disruption the Coronavirus pandemic has caused to their daily life. Signs of pandemic fatigue are mainly frustration and the strong urge to break health and safety guidelines in place due to the pandemic. 

Quarantine life is so stressful and challenging experiences….

Three months of no income.Daily routine has been totally changed. It’s so distressful.

Savings are running out….No work. Staying at home. Unproductive. Confused. Worried……

With my partner, we decided moving away from the city and try to begin a new life in Negros Oriental, Philippines (part of Visayas region).

On our way to Negros Oriental

Due to covid-19 we need to sell everything we have in Cebu City (one of our jeepney was sold), we are blessed because when we posted on Facebook it catches the interest of some buyers (in a day a lot of prospect buyers – so first come first served basis). We didn’t expect that in this tough times someone can still afford to buy a car (it’s really a blessing because we desperately needed cash and want to move out from the city as soon as possible).

Our source of income was stopped and we have to make other options/ resources to survive on this pandemic.

Negros Oriental – it is where my partner was born and raised – just across the ocean rather than going back home in Baguio City (my hometown 1,092.2 km away from where we live).

Before travelling, we need to secure a lot of requirements:

  • Health certificate from the city health department certifying that we had a 14-day quarantine not contact with suspect, probable nor a confirmed covid19 case.
  • We are fit to travel
  • No influenza
  • Travel Authority from the PNP (Philippine National Police)-COVID SHIELD 9 (3 weeks waited for this COVID SHIELD)

Requirements done. Prepare and pack all our stuff and ready to go.

Before travelling, something went wrong to our car. The alternator belt has been damaged and broken. All shops are still closed due to lockdown (where can we buy that belt?). My partners brother in law tried to helped us to find one (using his motorcycle). I am hopeless that we can’t catch up the last trip of the ship going to Negros. We desperately needed to go. After an hour, (Thank God) he came back with the car belt bought in a no-holiday small auto shop nearby.

Everything was fixed and ready to travel.

While travelling, a lot of checkpoints. Police officers assigned checking all our travel documents before letting us pass. Every boarder’s…. checkpoints.

About 5 hours trip (with private car), at last we reached the seaport boarders. We’re the last person to enter the ship (last minute). Thank you to Mr. Navy officer who allowed us to enter and give us considerations, only one-person slot is allowed – two of us ( with private car).

I thank the Lord for guiding and keeping us safe on the road even a lot of struggles.

Entering the boarders of Tampi Negros Oriental, again we were instructed to wait the Local Government Units decision whether we will be home quarantined or go straight to the Government Quarantine Facility (Quarantine again? So sad, we were already home quarantined in Cebu for almost 2 months before travelling).

On the ship crossing the boarders of Tampi Negros Oriental

Waiting again (almost 30 minutes) for our convoy going to the Government Quarantine facility. We try to talk to the people assigned if we can just have our Home Quarantine but they did not allow us to do so (strictly following government protocols). No choice, need to follow strict safety protocols from Inter Agency Task Force IATF-Philippines.

We’re directed to go to the Government Quarantine Facility. They get our personal information, body temperatures and interview/ask some questions before entering their facility. Had to change all our clothes and washed hands, feet and every part of our body that was exposed. (They also sanitized our car before entering to their premises, so strict.).

 14 Days Quarantine At The Government Facility

  • Can’t sleep well – quarantined at the elementary public school
  • Can’t eat well- foods are rotational and sometimes my stomach can’t really take the way they cooked and served the food (sometimes OK but mostly not) …
  • Stressful- due to lack of sleep, can’t control everything sometimes feel self-pity
  • Fear and worry- panic attack, changes in body temperature, sometimes heartrate increases
  • Can’t go out- strictly no going out due to strict protocols but others are really hardheaded
  • Uncomfortable- due to the environment, no comfortable bed and the surroundings itself (not used to it)
  • Don’t know what to do – limited things/stuff to do.
  • Self-pity- I felt sorry for myself why I am in this place and I really have a hard time coping with this kind of routine.
  • Irritable- sometimes feel angry without any reason and feeling crying’
  • Unproductive- I felt useless doing nothing
  • Self-talk- talking to myself that this will end soon.Feeling OK but not really OK.
  • Making stupid things/ideas/behavior-can’t control my negative emotions, a lot was going on my mind
  • Anxiety- due to the pandemic especially that a lot of uncontrollable things are happening around us

After 14 days of quarantine is it really effective to prevent the spread of covid19 virus? 

According to the CEBM (Center for Evidence-Based Medicine), 14-days quarantine efforts are effective, the number of newly infected cases per day should slow two-weeks following the quarantine implementation. Current variation in testing practices, however, makes it impossible to understand if number of daily cases have peaked.

Viruses don’t travel, people do. So intuitively, expect that imposing physical space barriers will work to eradicate infection. However, the effectiveness of quarantine during a viral outbreak relies on the timing and accuracy of the quarantine period, as well as the ability of individuals and health care providers to follow quarantine procedures. The current evidence-base is limited, and COVID-19 infection trends raise critical questions about implementation effectiveness. ( Read more https://www.cebm.net )

After fourteen days in the quarantine facility gives a very big impact in our lives. It makes us realized that we should make life more meaningful and gives deeper insights on how to give importance to ourselves and to others including our surroundings while moving forward in our daily life.

It makes us stronger, patient, having healthy lifestyle, loving ourselves first before others (how can you love others if you don’t even love your own yourself) and make the most of your time.These experiences makes us realized that life is too short to make stupid things, to hate and destroy one’s life in unacceptable manner.

I realized that we need to slow down and focus on meaningful goals.

Be happy. Be contented. Be Grateful in everything, it can be small or big because small things can really make a big difference.

This pandemic inspires us more to find purpose in life and make deeper connections with our love ones.

Life is too short so we have to spend it wisely and make it more meaningful. In this time of crisis, I can’t even imagine how this Covid19 quickly changes our way of life in a blink. Resources was gone and you don’t know how to start all over again.

It’s so scary to restart the new normal life but we really have to move on and push the restart button again.

Life must go on to a new way of living where we still need to practice social distancing and make other behavioral changes.

Self- survival to overcome this situation is badly needed to maintain a positive attitude and keep moving forward, even you’re stressed and distressed.

We need to accept the fact that life can be changed every day at this moment. We don’t know what will be going to happen for the next day.

Every day is different and it’s up to us to make it productive, stress free, worried free and don’t panic. Stop complaining. Be happy. Celebrate life every day. Don’t give up. Find your meaning and purpose to gain success even in difficult and tough times.

Photo taken in Besao Mt. Province

Until the COVID 19 virus still exist around us, we will continually face with challenges, difficulties and setbacks. This is unavoidable so we just need to focused on our physical, mental and emotional health. Learning to manage stress and respond with a positive attitude on this challenges, grow as a person and start focusing good in life.

Every one of us have our own fears in our lives. It’s normal. We are humans. We need to break our fear barriers in order for us to focused on giving our best to whatever we are doing that will allow us to do amazing things.

If we really want to have a better quality of life after all this challenges, we have to take responsibility on our behavior and change can happens. Changes will bring remarkable results into our life and the flow would go smoothly in a way we like to happen.

Always pray to God to guide us, make us strong and healthy every day. Be blessed and be a blessing to others….

How about you?  

Share with us how did you deal with this unforgettable experiences during this pandemic?

Or any unexpected encounters in this tough times?

Have you experience to be quarantined?

Home quarantined?

Or isolated due to pandemic?

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