It's Okay Not To Be Okay

I'm writing this post because I've had a lot of time over the last few weeks being left alone with my own thoughts, as my normally super busy work life and personal life (notice I didn't say social life) has become non existent.

I'm a mid 40's man from the UK, living in a shared house with various other housemates, none of them are English but do have a certain grasp of the English language, down to conversational level but only if I speak slowly and clearly enough for them to understand.

Each of my fellow housemates are older than me, or at least they certainly appear to be older than me, not that I am being ageist.

My day job is in Sales so naturally, you the reader, will understand that it is a demanding and time consuming job, I mean sometimes I check the clock and realise I've been so busy that I blinked and almost missed lunch, having started work at 730am.

Don't get me wrong, I thrive on it! So imagine how I feel since I have been furloughed since 01st April, I'd never even heard of the word until March of this year so had to look it up.

I'd like to say right now that I am very grateful that so far I do still have a job to go back to which will hopefully be sooner rather than later.

BUT - being on this furlough for at least 3 weeks, WTF am I supposed to do with my time? We are also on lockdown here so I can't even go out to do anything unless it is urgent, so a trip to the shops or a trip to the chemist is about it. Proving difficult when on an Easter weekend the temperature has topped 23 degrees, typical.

So, now to get through this lockdown time, it's purely down to keeping busy at home, I have zero interest in DIY but have achieved cutting the lawn twice and that was out of necessity instead of wanting to.

I feel like I've ripped the shit out of Netflix and watched everything on it that offers a glimmer of excitement , though I've found various boxsets to binge on to probably get me through till after the long weekend.

My drinking has definitely increased where I was more of a pint a night man or a couple at the weekend, I'm now picking up 4 packs of beer at the supermarket and a 70cl bottle of Jack Daniels or Jim Beam whichever happens to be cheaper and available JUST to give me something to do.

The last time I was off work for this long, was when I was signed off with Pneumonia, for strangely enough 3 weeks, however I was too ill to work anyway at that was over 10 years ago, our world was a very different place back then.

One thing I am grateful for is my passion for reading, especially now that I appear to have all the time in the world and I feel like a young teenager again where I'm grounded for being naughty but this time it's different, no authority figure is yet to tell me how long I am grounded for. In fact, it's reading that has become my niche over the last year. I've been an avid reader of nonfiction for over 20 years and still can't get enough of it,

One thing I've learned over the last few weeks, is that I'm certainly NOT alone in this, I am also one for playing things down so I've struggled to accept the seriousness of this thing called CORONA

It dawned on me earlier today that we've not experiences a global crisis to this level since the end of WW2 and I didn't arrive until over 30 years later.

What I do know is that once this health crisis has been defeated, society will NOT go back to where is was before for months, if not years.

Corona is as we know a respiratory virus that start with a raised temperature and difficulty breathing properly and the best ways to avoid getting it is by thorough and correct hand washing, either with soap and water, or sanitisers. Maintaining a distance of at least 2 metres from the next nearest person is critical, now coined as (social distancing).

These are two critical measures to take to avoid contracting the disease yourself, however we also need to understand the potential societal changes taking place too.

Humans are by nature social animals so going on total lockdown for an unspecified time will have at least the follows consequences.

• Mental Health issues across ALL ages and background - OCD
• Domestic Abuse Increasing, already by 25% at least in some areas.
• High birthdate globally around Christmas based on April lockdowns
• Suicide rates increasing in both men and women
• Reintegration - Once Lockdown restrictions have been lifted, it would be have to be a structured approach
• Sky High unemployment
• Furloughs - National Debt going into TENS of BILLIONS that will still have to be paid back and is likely to take a generation to settle the debt.
• Households are letting struggling to cope with spending time in their homes 24/7 - families wouldn't normally spend more than a handful of hours together in the day
• Budgeting the family finances could lead to mental health issues

I for one, due to having debt issues over the years, much prefer to make my purchases in cash, except for large buys like fuel for the car or the weekly shop, everything else is cash so that I can effectively budget my money.

Many shops are currently insistent that we make all purchased using our card to swipe the reader therefore no physical cash needs to be handled.

While I understand the principle behind this, I also worry for people who have debt problems and have to manage their money in cash on a daily basis

This is only a handful of consequences that are of concern once the world has eradicated CORONA

These are the reasons I feel it's OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY in 2020

On a positive side, I do genuinely believe that from a business or work perspective that when this is all over and done with, the world will have a lot of catching up to do with work, business and making money so I do feel that we, as a global population will come back much stronger from this and thrive, the question is, how long will that take, will it be this year or next, personally I think it'll be the latter end of this year and into next.

What are your thoughts on this topic?