TORN BETWEEN CAREER AND PASSION

As they say, it’s not easy to live alone and far away from the family these Quarantine Days. Aside from Netflix and Spotify, here’s my “Top 10 Things to Manage Anxiety during Quarantine Days”, also these are the things that keep my sanity for 3 months now.

1. Get out occasionally. Take some Vitamin D with all precautions. Experience Metro Manila without its heavy traffic. It’s refreshing.

2. Try to be a good steward. It’s a good time to budget nowadays since we already cut our expenses from eating out, paying for public transportation, and spending from anything in Watsons and Rustans. 😀

3. Have a coffee break. Exercise and Intermittent Fasting. No one loves you more than your family and coffee, so drink. Anyway, I lose weight from 60KG to 54.5KG -55KG these days (since March 15, 2020).

4. Talk, pray, have a devotion with family and friends. You can’t go wrong with having a little chitchat with family and friends. Zoom, Facebook, WeChat, Whatsapp, Line, Viber – you have all the tools to reconnect with them. I have a nightly devotion with my family, a Tuesday and Saturday prayer fellowship with fellow Pastor’s Kids, chitchat aka gossip time with my Cebu friends, and a ‘hi’, ‘hello’, ‘kamusta ka?’, ‘miss you’ talk with old friends too. Attending a Sunday Worship Service via a live stream is also a good thing to reconnect with home churchmates. Celebrating a birthday via FB Messenger was fun.

5. Journaling and graphic designing. Pinterest-ing. I am trying to update my blog, but I am still preoccupied with my pro-bono graphic designing stuff. It’s always nice to see cool, cozy, pretty, well-arranged, and organized pictures on Pinterest. It’s relaxing.

6. Cook and eat real home food. Clean your house. Do your chores.

Something that I didn’t do until I needed to do. These quarantine months, I learned how to cook foods in just a rice cooker. Having a small space and lack of cooking materials were a challenge, but if you are hungry, you can’t help but learn how to survive. Washing the dishes and doing my laundry ease my anxiety.

One thing I noticed, every time I get out for buying groceries is, I have a lot of cleaning materials for our toilet/bathroom/comfort room. I always buy a new set of detergent and chlorine, even though I know I still have an extra. We might call it adulting, but, isn’t it nice to stay in a toilet/comfort/bathroom if it’s clean? 😀

7. Go around your community. Since I just recently transferred to a new community, I guess the balcony and the hallway is the best place to go around my new community.

8. Update or post something about your career takeaways on Linkedin. It’s a great place and venue to read and write real-life stories especially in the freelance, start-up, and corporate world.

9. Take good sleep and a good shower. Since everyone’s now Working from Home, the “Queuing and traffic time” previously are now being used to sleep but never forget to take a good shower. It relives your energy, especially to the night owls.

10. Learn a new hobby. So, I bought a Kalimba, because I miss music. (aside from listening to music). I miss reading notes and playing an instrument.

Last but not the least, check out the news about COVID19, when the flight resumes, and the opening of the borders.

P.s. And I got 200 Recognition Points for this IG post. Thank you, ACN.