Dear Reader,
Have you found that lately, some things around you aren't what they used to be? Not in the sense of the "New Normal" we're all living in, but something more interpersonal. Did your girlfriend finally agree to move in with you? Or did your friends who'd been together for 8 years, the ones who were waiting for the right time, finally get married? Or do you find your social feed full of gender reveals and baby bumps? Or have you finally realized how empty your life is without a dog and adopted one? If one or more of these have happened to you, congratulations! You have been a part of the COVID Acceleration.
What is the COVID Acceleration you might ask? Here is my best attempt at explaining the concept:
Up until the world came to a standstill nearly a year ago, our lives had been constantly “ON”. One moment you were artfully photographing your eggs benny (#brunchingwiththebest), and in the next, you were skiing down the alps or hate-liking your friend's trip to Tulum on Instagram. But then suddenly, you didn’t have a lot going on.
You were just sitting at home, hoping to ride out a global pandemic with your health and a little bit of sanity intact. At first, you had Netflix (Ah, remember the Tiger King days?) and then TikTok (who didn't make a 'when I pop, drop, 👍👌👋✊🤘🤘🤞' video?). Followed by the banana bread times. But what then? Where did your mind wander to after the 3rd “Are you still watching Grey's Anatomy?” Netflix notification popped up?
After exhausting every possible distraction, you started to ruminate. You saw the life you were living or the one that you left behind in a new light. In a way, you identified what was missing and set the intention to remedy it. This isn't surprising when the world around you is in flames, you suddenly view time differently. Waiting until tomorrow or for ‘the right time’ doesn't seem like an option. You are forced to consider, "This is the world that we live in now, and I must move forward in some way." That's why you choose to control that which you had neglected for so long, your personal life. With career opportunities and travel taking a back seat, your relationships come into the spotlight and the void became even larger. As does the urgency to fill it. But like I said earlier, don't see this as a product of haste. It is the COVID Acceleration, where the sudden change in velocity is caused by 'waking the f*ck up'.
Now let's get technical, here's the formula for acceleration(a):
v - final velocity
v0 - starting velocity
t - time elapsed
Let's apply that to a real-world scenario:
In January of 2020, Padma was moving through life at a velocity of '1 milestone/year'. She and her girlfriend were happy, they were both very successful and even had a trip planned to Peru. There was absolutely no reason to change things, they probably would have spent New Years in Hong Kong, and still be just living together in New York. They would have discussed marriage in 2021, continuing at the velocity of '1 milestone/year'. But that didn't happen. Instead, the uncertainty of the future dawned on Padma. It made her realize that there were very few things she had control over. Of those, her relationship was paramount. Then, as a result of the COVID Acceleration, she not only discussed the future, but also proposed to her girlfriend, and the two were married by October. This would mean that her new velocity is now '4 milestones/year'. This change in velocity delta of 3 milestones, in less than a year, is Padma's COVID Acceleration.
Surely, you can apply the same to your own life. Did this past year prompt a change in velocity for you? Because if it didn’t, then I implore you to pause and reflect as we enter a new year. And as you do so, entertain every thought. I would like to think that if you were to go after something you couldn't live without, you'd also eliminate that which you realized you couldn’t live with. As opposed to just hanging in there and waiting for the right time. Maybe even ask yourself the question, if you're not accelerating, what are you doing?
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