The Only Thing You Should Be Doing in Isolation is Staying Safe

It was a Thursday morning when the sensation started: I had opened Instagram for a brief respite from work, to be faced with posts showing off beautiful artistic creations, stunning DIY projects, and even breath-taking pictures of #IsolationBody.

None of this put me in a good mood, and for a few hours, I struggled to articulate exactly why that was. I’m not a creature beyond envy, so I’ve become accustomed to jealously eyeing up Insta-bodies while calculating how I could squeeze an extra calorie out of my morning coffee; I’ve also felt the usual pangs of social media FOMO that we all feel at one point or another.

This was different.

After discussing with every poor sod who bravely asked how I was that day, I came to the realisation that – despite being privileged enough to still be working through this nightmare – I felt a crushing pressure to be creating something, or showing off how amazingly I’d adapted to life inside.

My reality, however, is one of working from home; my work day hasn’t changed, I frequently called friends before, and I regularly watch TV with long-distance friends. And this is great! How lucky am I? I was thrust into this situation having already read the manual on how to not get distracted working from home, or how to look presentable on video calls despite the limitations of your clean clothes supply.

This, of course, contrasts with many people who are furloughed and bored, attempting to fill the vastness of each day with some sort of structure, even if it’s just another round of Tiger King binge-watching.

But somewhere between these two circumstances, a creeping idea around how we should all be spending this isolation has gotten progressively louder and louder – thanks in large part to viral videos, life coaches, and the type of person who shouts about how you too could be living in isolation in a mansion if only you committed more, before the YouTube video you're trying to watch starts playing.

Suddenly, there’s a pressure to have created something artistic, to have made a viral video showing off your family’s vocal talent, to be speaking another language fluently, and to have achieved all of this without losing your fucking mind by the end of lockdown. Somehow, we’re expected to participate in a cultural revolution, from which we’ll emerge into a new enlightened age, egged on by SoulCycle instructors and gobby internet personalities, and Justin Bieber.

Well if you’ve felt any of this pressure, let me tell you something: you don’t have to do a single one of those things. Sure, if you want to learn German while you’re furloughed, go for it; if you find you’ve got time to write that book you’ve been planning for six years, I'm happy for you.

But if you have none of those ambitions and all the responsibilities of looking after children and keeping your world turning, then the only thing you need to be doing is looking after yourself and your loved ones, so that you can come out the other side of this happy, healthy, and alive.

Instead, focus on being kind to yourself – which means finding a balance between doing sod all, and giving yourself some structure for your own mental wellbeing – and block out the noise.

And for anybody like me, still working but feeling the nagging tug of expectations, all those ambitions will still be waiting for you after the lockdown lifts. Take it easy on yourself.

Until things settle down, remember that you don’t owe a single one of these achievements to anyone – I'd rather you were to meet me on the other end of this, alive and well. That’s probably all any of us can hope for.