The Prolonged Dosage of Self Quarantine and It’s Side Effect
When we hear people talking about side effect, it always subconsciously puts ourselves into thinking the effect is negative. Personally, it’s due to years of life experience dealing with antibiotics and the flawed depiction of medication on mainstream entertainment. What are the things that come to your mind, when you come across the term side effect?
In the span of three weeks when Malaysians were told and still are restricted to move within their own homes, many spoke about the need to look at the silver lining of this pandemic. Accustomed my brain to do the same, which I think I am trying, I have been spending more time reflecting when compared to my old normal. In the old days, which sound remarkably ancient now, my reflections were confetti alike: celebrated like tiny pieces of color papers thrown over myself when my mind allowed it. (Check out the latest podcast by Sam Harris that shared about the term confetti of attention, with guest Laurie Santos from Yale University.)
Reflecting on the new normal
The new normal has given me more uninterrupted minutes in the morning consistently, for three weeks now. I’m subtly satisfied (preserving my energy) that I have not fallen off my morning jog routine for the last 25 days, coupled with nature connection therapy facilitated virtually by a friend, who is an avid and certified forest therapy guide. While jogging back and forth from the living hall to my room, I used the time for productive meditation, as recommended in Deep Work (by Cal Newport). With an exercise that lasts between 30 to 60 minutes, I can focus my mind on a single problem that I really want to solve, while I’m occupied physically. For a quick 15-minute nature connection that follows, I learn to sharpen my senses and appreciate more about what nature can provide and how we are part of nature that deserves our attention and careful preservation. The next hour of my day will be spent reading about content I have not been able to go deep enough, that could be feedback and help to fuel my days before I start attending to my research and serious experiments.
Until this point, it’s almost serendipitous for me to start nature connection as 8am is just nice for me to cool down after the jog. It’s also about choosing the only feasible way to spend time with my books as I can’t go to the nearby open-air mamak to read with a cuppa. Nevertheless these improv have unintentionally laid the foundation of my daily habits. I have set my 10am everyday as my work sprint, as my mind is sharper compared to the rest of the day and ready for deep dive. As the old cliché goes, life is like a box of chocolates, especially during this unprecedented “down” time, I still believe in chaos is where we are going to find order. What we could do now, is to build on the unintended consequences (side effect) of a pandemic. So far, evidence-backed research has proven that living in isolation seems to be the optimal state for some to discover what’s the most important, and how little they need to live a more meaningful life.
On a side note, I found models put forward by Cal Newport (Deep Work, Digital Minimalism etc.), Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (Make Time) fitting so I unpacked my habitual backpack to better identify each of the elements in the process of change. Perhaps, just like acknowledging what kind of pain or grief is the first step for someone to get out, clarity in what it is that gets us going, will empower us to stay on the course of reaching that far but not elusive goal.
If you have fun experiments to hone the attention management skills, feel free to drop me a note!
Authors I’m closely following: Yuval Noah Harari, Sam Harris, Lori Gottlieb, David Whyte.
