Maybe, more or less.

“It was the time when they loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other mortal trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore. ”
Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

So, another day dawns in this new reality. Day something or other. You’re not sure. You’ve stopped caring. Your mind is still spinning. You made some plans for the day, you know, keep producing and all that, but it’s tough to keep focussed. You can’t find flour. It’s stressing you out for some reason. Even though you’re not really a baker. You’re drinking a bit too much. Washing less. And you haven’t dressed up in a while. You’re pretty sick of video calls. And you miss people. Even though you’re not a massive people person, you miss contact. And at this stage, you’re a bit bored. But most importantly, you’ve spent way too much time at your dishwasher. And it’s starting to grate.

But in this squall, you’ve had time to think. Time you normally wouldn’t have or would have squandered.

You’ve realised the energy you’ve spent devising ways to save time. Quick meals, fast tracks, express services, short cuts… and now you wonder what the fuck you ever did with it and why you needed to save so much in the first place, to do so little with it.

And now, with plenty of it, you sit and think?

So you pen a few things down that you might do differently:

1. Maybe you’ll travel abroad less.
2. Maybe you’ll avoid crowds, for a bit.
3. Maybe you’ll buy more stuff online.
4. Maybe you’ll stick to video calls instead of business flights.
5. Maybe you’ll see your family more (or less).
6. Maybe you’ll read to your kids more.
7. Maybe you’ll make love more, hug more.
8. Maybe you’ll bake more (if you can find the flour).
9. Maybe you’ll make more, create more.
10. Maybe you’ll play more, with your kids, with your friends.
11. Maybe you’ll listen to the birds more.
12. Maybe you’ll be more present.
13. Maybe you’ll respect and appreciate all the people you took for granted.
14. Maybe you’ll appreciate and mind your health more.
15. Maybe you’ll reconsider your idea of wealth.
16. Maybe you’ll care less about things.
17. Maybe you’ll spend less.
18. Maybe you’ll use less and save more.
19. Maybe, you’ll look at what you’ve been doing and the direction you’ve been headed and wonder if it’s right anymore.
20. Maybe you’ll be happier more.

Maybe. Maybe after years of hearing vacuous marketing guff about knowing what matters, you might have moved a little closer to understanding what that is. To you. And your family. And why. Maybe you’ll figure that out. Maybe you’ll try to do more of it. Maybe not. But one things for sure, you’re not putting that f’king dishwasher on again.

Stay safe everyone.