4 Ways I’m Looking at Life Differently Since COVID-19

It’s no question that life looks vastly different than it did around this exact time last year. Everybody is looking at life differently.

At the beginning of the summer last year I was on the golf course with friends, hanging out on the weekends, and going to my corporate job on the weekdays. 

Now, none of that exists. 

It’s amazing how much can change in just a year. Nobody knew what was going to be happening in the next 365 days as the cause for why the world is the way it is today hadn’t yet been discovered. 

Call it what you will – a nuisance, a disruption, a disturbance, a terrible illness – I think all of these names would be appropriate for what we are experiencing. 

Now, take a deep breath and ask yourself something. Did anything change?

In focusing on the challenges you are currently facing or the many challenges that the world is facing, did your life get any better? Of course not. That’s because focusing on the negatives is only going to result in more negatives.

This isn’t to say that you are magically going to be able to find a cure to all of your problems and the problems that the world is facing just by focusing on the positives. It’s far more scientific than that. But… it’s a start.

While you might not be able to change the world overnight, you can definitely change your life, and it starts with the power of perception. 

4 Ways I’m Looking at Life Differently Since COVID-19

Challenges come and challenges go. We all experience challenges and we are going to continue to do so for the rest of our lives. It’s just part of life. You aren’t alone. Granted the severity is going to be different for everyone, we have all been impacted by this illness in some way or another. 

Oddly enough, I have managed to find happiness in life through this time. Maybe it’s because I have taken the time to slow down and actually appreciate the simple things in life, or maybe it’s because I have been able to prioritize more of the good. Despite the pandemic we are facing, I am happier today than I was before all of this started. I truly believe it’s because I have been able to look at life differently since COVID-19. 

In hopes of helping you find happiness, peace, and stillness in your life as well, I want to share with you some of the ways I’m looking at life differently since COVID-19. Just remember, you are not me and I am not you. We are all different, but finding the good is a choice we all have the ability to make. 

1. Pay attention to what you consume.

I gave up on the news. After all that the world is experiencing, I have realized that the news is full of negativity – only negativity. 

Example: I got in the car this morning to get my coffee and listened to about 30 seconds of the news station that was already on. They were comparing the two presidential candidates and one of the news anchors said “Well, it’s easier to criticize him now because he’s in office.”

Regardless of political views, who has this mindset? Who wants to make it their life’s mission to wake up every single day just to criticize another person? How can that possibly make life remotely enjoyable? 

For me, that was the final straw. No more news. I don’t care what one’s political views might be, two wrongs don’t make a right. 

2. Find the good in the day. 

Instead of listening to more of the news, I came home and meditated for five minutes. Call me a hippie, I don’t care. It felt good, it helped me to clear my mind, and it helped me to find the good that already fills my life. I will be the first to say that my life is primarily nothing but good. 

We attract the very thoughts we give precedence to. If we prioritize the bad and the negative, our thoughts are going to reflect that. If we prioritize the good and the positive, our thoughts will reflect that as well. Our lives are going to be a direct reflection of the very thoughts we prioritize, so prioritize the good as much as you can. 

3. Slow down and focus on what’s important.

This was probably the hardest change that I had to deal with since the world shut down. I have always been someone who needs to be busy… all of the time. But I will admit that my need to be busy got in the way of me being able to truly focus on what’s important in life. Granted I have always prioritized my health, my family, and my job, I wasn’t focusing on them as much as I should have been. 

You know how the saying goes, “You never realize what you had until it’s gone.” That’s how I felt. Granted I didn’t really lose anything, I also wasn’t wanting to wait to lose something before I started appreciating it. I am grateful that this pandemic forced me to slow down and focus on what’s most important in my life. I fear that if it didn’t, I would still be running around at a rapid pace failing to appreciate all of the things that already make my life so amazing. 

4. You don’t need a lot to be happy. 

Shocker… We have all heard this before, but I for one am experiencing this firsthand right now. At the start of the pandemic, I flew out to Utah to stay with my parents for what I thought was going to be a brief two-week stay. More than three months later and I’m still here – with nothing more than the contents in the suitcase that I originally brought. 

Still, within these three months, I have been able to find more happiness, more stillness, and more peace in my life than I could have ever imagined. How? Because not only have I learned to be grateful for what I already have, but also because I have realized that I don’t need a lot in order to be happy. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s always nice to have fancy things, but having them isn’t going to make you happier. If you truly want to find happiness in life, take the time to slow down, be appreciative of what you already have, and never let your happiness be controlled by materialistic “things.” 

Before You Go

It’s not always easy to focus on the good in life when there is so much negativity around you, and the world we are living in now loves to prioritize the negatives. That’s where you have to make the conscious decision of if you want to allow the negatives into your life, or if you want to prioritize the good so that you can find the good. 

In seeing how much more enjoyable life is, I would definitely recommend trying to focus on the positives. It’s helped to change my life for the better, and I believe it will do the same for you as well.

Michael Bonnell