By Veronica Vasquez
While 2020 was a year that will go down in history as being daunting, traumatic and heartbreaking, the change and chaos taught us many lessons and inspired growth that will stay with us far beyond 2020.
One of the biggest lessons that 2020 taught me was to appreciate the little things.
Do not get me wrong, this mantra has lived in my brain for years now and while I thought I was doing this before, it now has a far deeper meaning than it ever did. Let me rewind a little to explain how I got to where I am now.
Before COVID-19, my schedule was booked from 8am – 9pm. My days were marked running from class to class, work, club meetings, fueled by the occasional Starbucks latte. Although I was involved in organizations that I was passionate about, I was stretching myself too thin. This was the life that I knew. This was the life that I had built for myself. Despite the people around me telling me I should prioritize myself, I had no inclination to change it. Then Spring 2020 came and the University of Oregon announced that we would be operating entirely remotely for the term. At first, I felt like I was being robbed of my college experience. No longer needing to run from point A to point B meant that I had time to take perspective on the life I was building for myself. Just like that I was no longer the “boss lady” I had spent months building myself up to be.
“With my new perspective, I started to realize that what was of utmost importance to me was not how many meetings I could squeeze in a day, but more so doing things and being with people that made me happy.”
This simple observation felt like groundbreaking news at the time. I realized that if I wanted to continue my involvement in all of these organizations, I was going to have to learn to make time for myself and my own well-being throughout the day.
I used to think of self-care as something that was only going to consume more of my time and energy. My self-care was reserved for Sunday evenings and while I recognize that any amount of self-care is important, I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I filled my Sunday evenings with your stereotypical visions of self-care (face masks, bubble baths, etc.), despite the fact that though I knew that those do not particularly work for me. Even when I was doing my face masks, my mind continued to drift off to my extracurriculars. The reason why good self-care is so important is so you have the opportunity to recharge and spend time with yourself, for yourself.
Once my life was literally flipped upside down with COVID-19, I, like many of us, was forced into a stagnant lifestyle. So much of my life was out of my control, so I learned to take control of my mindset and how I saw things. So much had changed and yet, nothing had changed. I was still involved in everything that I was passionate about, but the way I saw those things changed.
“What was once just another thing in my day, I saw in a new light, with a new appreciation for the fact that when everything was going wrong… I was safe, I was healthy and I was growing.”
It really is all about learning to appreciate the little things: like sharing music recommendations with a friend, a good book, learning something new, the smell of coffee in the morning, and the sunsets on my afternoon walks that make all the difference in my everyday life. To appreciate the little things is to see life as a never-ending mystery that just keeps giving. That is the intention I have made for myself, not just for 2021, but for the rest of my life.
As a disclaimer, this is in no way trying to belittle anyone who has undergone a traumatic event or is having a hard time adjusting to the constant outpour of news. We are literally experiencing current events that have never been seen before and that is incredibly scary. We are hurting as a world and I in no way want to ignore everything that is happening. Take the information that applies to you and leave everything else behind for a later time.
Veronica Vazquez is a Duck Corps Program Lead for the Holden Center, and as well as a Double Major in Family and Human Services & Spanish at the U of O.
