I believe that as 2021 begins, it’s more important than ever before not to put your life on pause because of our circumstances. With Blue Monday mere days away, this feels particularly topical as a way to beat it.

Christmas provided a good period for reflection, with New Year constituting a moment to challenge myself on whether I’m accomplishing all that I wish. The self-evaluation has combined with two other ideas:

  1. Not treating the latest lockdown as a countdown to March, or any other period.
  2. Rejecting the idea of New Year’s Resolutions in favour of just living the life you want from the moment you realise what you can do.

The New Normal

The first point came from something shared by a runner on social media that really resonated with me. They mentioned how when they go out for a long run and they see they’re nearing the end of it, the final leg can get really hard. They get round this by putting themselves in the mindset that the run will never end – they just have to keep going, which is conversely easier than sighting the finish line – and this is the mindset being adopted for coping with lockdown. I felt this made a lot of sense as it focuses you on what’s controllable and avoids set up for disappointment by counting down to different activities at the end of lockdown. Treat this as how life is now and make the most of it, then adapt again when there’s another new normal.

My other reason for feeling this way is on the basis of my understanding of COVID-19 from things said by varying experts all the way along. I’m not a scientist and do not claim any expertise, but I feel confident in my understanding that we will not be going back to ‘normal’ quickly. This is also based on my understanding of influenza, a.k.a. the flu.

The flu is something we currently manage using vaccines. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), different strains of influenza cumulatively result in a global incidence of 3-5m serious cases of flu per year, and between 290,000 and 650,000 deaths linked to respiratory causes. These rates are only this ‘low’ due to the flu vaccine (as there is no cure). The vaccine is created on an annual cycle via scientists tracking different variant strains, modelling which ones they think will become epidemic and tailoring to those predictions. The severity of the flu outbreak in any given year depends on how effective that prediction is, even before considering uptake of the jab and public behaviour.

COVID-19 is a virus in the same way influenza is a virus. It will mutate to produce new variant strains, as seen in the recent UK version and the South African versions. The response to managing it will be the same as with the flu – an annual cycle of monitoring new variant strains, modelling their trajectories and iterating the vaccine as needed, before giving it to as many people as are willing to have it as early as they can.

Most of us in the UK will be familiar with the concept of ‘Winter Pressures’ on the NHS – that during the winter, more people end up in hospital. This stretches NHS resources, resulting in opening up new wards for extra capacity. Year on year, we have had news reports of this capacity running out and capacity is one of the reasons we need the new Nightingale hospitals to cope with COVID-19 (I think this has most recently been called ‘super surge capacity’). There are a range of reasons for higher demand in a normal winter, from poorer weather and less light resulting in more accidents, to time huddled together indoors making it easier for illness like flu to travel. The massive drives to increase uptake of the flu jab are a big Public Health preventative drive to decrease pressure on the NHS. COVID-19 will become another seasonal pressure and making it ‘business as usual’ will take time, hence indications that we might need restrictions again next winter.

In short, I think that whilst we may all hope for returns to ‘normal’, unless a whole raft of other issues facing the NHS are resolved to create capacity – staffing and finance as well as buildings and equipment – we need to be prepared to treat some changes to how we live as permanent. We’ll all be better off, both mentally and physically, for doing so.

No Resolutions, Just Live Life

That negativity, perhaps even dread, that you might be feeling now you’ve read the bit above is why it’s important to focus on the right things. To me, that’s on living our lives in the context of this new normal rather than thinking about what we’ve lost. I know this will look very different for different people: if you’re on furlough, or have lost your job, this is not an easy thing. I still believe we can all treat changes in how we live as opportunities.

The timing right now is unhelpful. Don’t think of it as making resolutions for January because this ethos is relevant all year round. You shouldn’t need to wait to January to embark on something new, and you shouldn’t feel pressured by January to do something different if you’re currently doing well. Resolutions also imply goals or targets. This isn’t about that, it’s about looking for that thing in life you really want to do and asking yourself what’s really stopping you? Is it actually impossible or could you find time to do something toward it?

For my personal example: I want to write. I took a step last August when I reflected that there was only me stopping me from setting up a website and starting to share words. Whether anyone read them was beyond my control (though I have been incredibly touched by people who have read and reached out). Of course it makes me feel vulnerable, as pursuing things we really want will always make us feel. There is a chance of failure. The failure can become part of the journey though, and it is a sign of trying. To bastardise a popular quote: better to have lived and failed than never to have lived at all.

None of us really know what tomorrow will bring for sure. 2020 proved that beyond doubt – COVID-19 was the black swan (highly unlikely risk) that most risk management functions hadn’t seriously considered. 2021 has already seen events in America unheard of in 200 years. I wouldn’t like to guess what will come next. So if there’s a thing you want to do, find a way.

Here are a few things that are possible right now:

  • (Re)-Connecting with other people – via phone, text, email, forum, social app etc. We are physically isolated, but this doesn’t need to mean emotionally isolated.
  • New arts or crafts – painting, drawing, sewing and resin art are all things people I know have taken up in lockdown.
  • Dating – the apps are still there for you to talk to people. You can get to know people via text, video or phonecall with no physical contact needed.
  • New forms of exercise – from running to taking up dance lessons using shows available on streaming services, there are ways.
  • Nice meals – from cooking for yourself to ordering takeaway.
  • Writing a book – (particularly relevant to me!).
  • Learning an instrument.
  • Learning a language.
  • Learning almost anything…

I’ll leave it to you to fill in dreams you may have and ways you can do things you always wanted to do, but in a different way.

Some of this does reiterate the previous blog messages at Christmas, but it seems really important to do that given how tough people are finding the current situation. Try and embrace this new normal and focus on the positives of what you can do; putting your life on pause to worry about the uncontrollables will only hurt. We can beat Blue Monday – just live your life.

And a reminder from previous entries – if you’re really struggling and it does feel too much, talk to the Samaritans. You are not alone in finding this really hard and there are people who can help.

Thank you for reading.