5 Things That Hit Me While I Had Covid-19

When you are sick, you start to reflect on things

I’m finally getting over Covid.

It hasn’t been the worst thing to ever happen to me. But it is like the worst cold I have ever had. The only thing that rivals it goes back to having Influenza A a few years back. That was pretty terrible too.

The difference though comes down to the uncertainty that comes with Covid. No matter how much you try and follow the information, there is so much information that contradicts. Not just misinformation, but contradicting information from CDC, WHO, and doctors offices across the world.

My symptoms were pretty common: cough, fever, loss of taste and smell, some digestive stuff, and severe body aches. Nothing terrible though. The only thing that really was hard was the fact that it lasted about ten days before things started to feel better.

Now, more than two weeks later, I feel almost back to normal. Aside from the ongoing cough that is finally getting better. At the time of writing this, I even started to taste and smell things again.

I know this hasn’t been the case for everyone though. And I don’t want to discount the terrible experiences people have too. Plus, there have been enough friends and family who have died which doesn’t make it any less scary. So I get it. Covid isn’t just a cold.

Covid caused me to take a good long look at my life.

While things weren’t terribly bad, I was still thinking about my life and how things have been going. I was looking at what things I wanted to change. It also made me consider the things that I have taken for granted too.

5 Revelations from being Sick with Covid

There was a lot of reflection and I found five things that stuck out to me. They might seem a little random, but maybe not. Maybe they are all things that have been at the front of my mind and I just need to force myself to look at things differently

№1 — My JOB has made me a slave.

After being sick for days, I still needed rest. My wife was a few days behind me with Covid and she needed rest.

But… but, my workload was looming from my home office. I could feel it pulling at me. I knew no one was working my claims. I knew everything that I hadn’t done would be sitting there screaming at me. Hundreds of people, pissed off because no one did anything for them.

I wanted to go back to work.

Not because I love my job, but because I’ve become a slave to it. The oppression of the work was tugging at the chain it had around my peace of mind. And I was all too willing to answer.

I’ve become a slave to this terrible job. I hate it, but I still feel like I have to work it. It’s the dumbest thing in the world. I never thought I would become one of those people stuck in a job I hate. But that’s exactly what happened over the last eight years.

But, I’m not going to stay like this.

№2 — I’m going to quit my job.

Sitting in bed, talking to my wife, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I need to quit my job. It isn’t healthy for me in the short term. And, it is no longer sustainable for me or our marriage in the long run. My day job is a soul sucker. And I’m going to quit this year.

I’ve been working at my job for more than eight years. Slowly taking steps up the corporate ladder. I’ve learned to be good at jobs and tasks that don’t really matter. Well, sometimes they matter, but most of the time, they are fueling a societal problem.

In every job and position, I have been miserable. Though, I always learn to stuff down how I feel in the name of supporting my family. But the truth is, it’s killing me and making me grumpy. So, it supports us financially but kills our connection.

It also makes me lose faith in people. Sure, my every day is 100 other people’s bad days. For some, they got hurt in a car accident. For others, they are being sued by someone who says they are hurt and wants more money.

I’m going to quit. And I might just do it this year. After being sick for ten days and really evaluating my life, I can’t keep working that crappy job. No matter how much money I make.

№3 — Covid is more than a virus.

What I have learned over the last two years and from my two weeks of sickness is that Covid is more than a virus. It is. Let’s just put it on the table for a moment. And here’s what I mean.

1. Covid is followed by a spirit of death. My father told me we were lucky that we didn’t have worse symptoms because we weren’t vaccinated. Yet, many vaccinated people we know who are getting Covid anyway have worse symptoms than us. People expect a narrative of death wherever Covid goes. But, that narrative is not true more than 90% of the time.
2. Covid is a political issue. If you refuse to admit it, you are in denial. Republicans and Democrats alike are using Covid for their own agendas. It’s not one party or the other, it’s both. Once we get that clear in our minds, then we can move on with looking at Covid differently.
3. Covid is dangerous. But not for everybody. It’s dangerous for my parents. But, it wasn’t for my family. That said, we are taking our precautions and making sure we are all recovered before seeing my parents. However, I’m not going to do things I’m uncomfortable with just to make people happy or feel safe.

These are a few of my thoughts on Covid. They may not be popular. The way my wife and I choose to live may not be popular. But, this is how we are living in light of Covid.

№4 — Not everyone is being truthful about making money online.

I’m not sure I’m going to read any more articles about making money online. There are too many people who talk about it, but I’m not convinced they are actually doing it.

For example, someone shares the steps to making $500 a month online, but they don’t have 100 followers here. When I went to their socials, they clearly followed the ‘follow-for-follow’ method toward their larger following.

But this method doesn’t equal fans. It just creates huge numbers of inactive people. How they sell anything seems unlikely. Sure, maybe they have a few fans in that mess of bloated numbers, but not $ 500-month numbers.

And you know what, I see this happening everywhere.

So, what do we do about it? How can we actually find the people who are making money online and sharing honest, helpful advice? These are questions I find myself asking more and more. I think there are a few ways to sort through the crap.

1. Social Proof. Who has made money online based on this person’s product or service? If they have quotes and reviews, they probably have made some money online.
2. Complete Transparency. They share their figures. Not just the $1,000,000 sold mark, but figures show that they have worked at it. And, that they have failed in some places too. If they say they’ve made “x” amount of dollars but give nothing to confirm it, I’m not convinced.
3. Foundation You Can See. This goes back to reviewing someone’s followers. If someone says they are making tons of money but don’t have a lot of following to account for, they probably aren’t making a lot of money. There is one caveat: email lists. It’s hard to know if someone had a crazy high subscriber count which could fuel their earnings.

Maybe I am a little jaded these days. After all, I have been at this side hustle business for nearly four years. I have had ups and downs in income, but nothing has blown my socks off.

Perhaps I’m jealous. Well, I’m sure that there is jealousy regarding my thoughts on other people talking about making crap tons of money online. At least in part. However, I’m also tired of hearing all about it, but not seeing a lick of evidence.

№5 — Maybe we are living in a post-self-help world.

I don’t think people want to do the work of helping themselves anymore. I think so many of us would prefer to have a book or an o line course do the work and then tell us how to do it. Yet, it seems to me that this is a scapegoat too.

In fact, I think we are willing to throw some cash on the table for a Gumroad download or mini-course and then never actually follow it. I think that’s why there are so many of these products out there.

Heck, I’ve got one for life planning.

But I have started to wonder, especially while laying in bed scrolling through Twitter while recovering from Covid, do we live in a post-self-help world? Are we so numb to the idea of bettering ourselves that it’s just part of the culture but no one really cares?

How many of us have actually bought books or courses but never completed them? They just collect virtual dust on our Kindle Bookshelves or hard drives while we go on living our lives the way we always have.

Maybe this isn’t a new problem. Perhaps this has always been happening and I’ve become jaded. But something tells me we are entering into a new passivity of a post-self-help world.

Final Thoughts on My Covid Reflections

You know. These are pretty random things. Yet, they all connect to me in one way or another. Most of all, I find myself deciding to make some changes this year. I will probably quit my job by the end of the year.

Not just because I’m fed up with it, but because I want to be an example to my kids. I want them to see their dad loving the job he does and being in control of his business.

Why is this important to me?

Well, because I don’t want my kids to be slaves to a job they hate. I also want them to think critically about the way they see the world. Whatever their Covid situation will be, I want them to think about all the angles. Lastly, I want them to be ready for whatever the world has for them.

There will only be so much that I can do to teach them these lessons. However, if I can give them an example to draw on, then I have done half the work? Maybe more?

In some ways, I’m glad I’ve had Covid. It forced me to think about life a little bit more. It also made me more aware of where I am compared to where I think I am in life.

If you have had Covid, have you had any of these deep reflections? If so, what are they? If not, have you thought about your life a little bit more because of the reality we face? Share in the responses below.

J.R. Heimbigner is a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon who loves helping people grow in their faith, find productivity success, and help writers become authors. You can connect with him on Medium, his website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Faithful.

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