HOW TO SURVIVE SOCIAL DISTANCING: FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS

When I started this blog, my goal was to create a platform that required me to go out and explore Boston, write about my experiences, and share recommendations with my readers. Although, the COVID-19 pandemic has made that goal impossible; the rest of my semester will be taking place online from a desk in my parents’ house. I’m sure you can see the problem with continuing to write a blog that’s based on its original topic. So, I have planned to use this platform as a way to document my experience during this era of social distancing and to share ways with readers on how to get through it. 

Currently, everyone I know is working from home and staying home to “flatten the curve.”  Even though staying home isn’t the most ideal thing to do (especially after you’ve been doing it for 2 weeks and have a case of cabin fever) it’s important to keep following these social distancing guidelines because an actual fever is a lot worse and very dangerous to those around you. 

I’ve come to find that it’s so easy to get caught up in the negative aspects of the situation, so having a positive mindset during this time has been very beneficial to my mental health. For instance, the other day I kept overthinking the fact that my sophomore year of college got cut short and found myself saying to my family while we were eating dinner, “I have lost my will to live.” The moment after that came out of my mouth I realized how overly dramatic that sounded and that I didn’t want to actually die, but I needed to reevaluate my purpose and expectations during this season of my life called “the Coronavirus.” By viewing this time as an opportunity for self-growth instead of that one time when that really bad pandemic robbed me of part of my college experience, I have started to feel better about being home and not in Boston.

Shifting your perspective is key to getting through this time. Whenever negative thoughts of boredom enter my horizon, I choose to think about this extra time as an opportunity to get to the things that I wanted to do before but never got to-do because I just didn’t have the time. Some of these things that have been on my to do list for a while now include: watching really good movies, drawing, taking online writing workshop classes instructed by one of my favorite poets (Rupi Kaur), experimenting with new recipes, listening to podcasts about self-love, running 3 miles every other day…. the list goes on. 

Also, whenever I find myself feeling bummed out about what would be currently happening if patient zero never ate that stupid bat, I try to channel my negative thoughts into optimistic ones. To do this, I think about what life is going to be like post corona. I try to visualize the first weekend when everyone can go out and see their friends after being at home for so long. I think about the first concert, museum trip, darty, music festival, my first day at my summer internship, beach days with friends, and everything and anything that requires me to leave my house and have contact with the outside world. I realize that it might be a bit of a wait before any of these things are possible again, but by adopting this mindset I have something to look forward to and I am completely hyped for when the time for these things to happen again comes. 

My point is, we have been given the gift of time and you can either use this time to improve yourself and try something new, or you can wallow in your own self-pity and be miserable the entire time. I chose the first option and hope you do too.

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