What Prepared Me for a Stressful Situation

Just like many of my friends, especially writer friends with children, I became aware that my days had become busier during lockdown.

This was different to those friends who were used to having busy lives outside of their homes and maybe didn’t have a family yet, or who had adult children, and suddenly had to spend whole weeks inside their homes all on their own.

Many people seemed to be caught off-guard by this change of situation.

Why wasn’t I?

One reason was that I was used to staying at home to write or work on projects for my customers remotely.

Many authors and entrepreneurs I know loved going to work at cafes or libraries, to spend at least part of their days outside of their homes.

Many attributed it to their household chores getting in the way at home. I was convinced of that for quite some time too, but Self-Gamification (= turning life into fun games) helped me realize that it wasn’t the housework interfering when I procrastinated about something, but me escaping from things I wanted or needed to do and then blaming other circumstances or household chores. One of my favorite escape-to activities in the household was laundry, and still is sometimes.

Other aspects make being at home for most of the day the best environment for me. And these are a couple of health conditions. I have multiple food sensitivities, some of them severe, such as gluten, and at home, I can better control what and how I eat.

I also have an eye condition that currently doesn’t permit me to wear either glasses or contact lenses, although I am shortsighted. I feel more comfortable orienting myself at home than in an unknown environment where I can’t see anyone or anything clearly, even at a distance of a couple of meters.

And the osteoarthritis I became aware of recently is easier for me to handle here in our house, than in a cafe, library, or office. At home, I can easily and frequently alternate between sitting, standing, walking, dancing, and brief exercises (hopping, bouncing, breathing, yoga, and others).

So my situation, along with Self-Gamification, helped me to “prepare” for the lockdown.

There was something else too. In the first three or four weeks of this year, my daughter Emma was frequently at home, first with an eye infection, then with a cold or two. So, there was almost a month where I had to combine taking care of her, the household, and my work as a writer and entrepreneur. Thus you could say that time with my daughter prepared me for combining a working day with taking care of my family.

I am sure that you have had similar experiences in the past, when you have been challenged, maybe not in the exact same way as now, but still, some experiences that brought you, as they say in game design vocabulary, many “experience points” and prepared you at least in some way for these insecure times.

Experience point: “(in a role-playing or video game) a point awarded to a player as a measure of their progress within a game, given for accomplishing a task such as collecting a particular item or defeating an enemy.” — Lexico

So that was about being prepared for being “confined” to our homes, and a significant increase in the number of commitments we have each day.

But there is another challenge, which many people face during the lockdown. In these times of so-called “social distancing,” remote communication, over the phone and online, is the healthiest option for all of us. It is especially important when we communicate with our elderly parents and grandparents, but also with our peers.

Many might be afraid that relationships could suffer because of social distancing.

Fortunately, I have had experience over the years that has prepared me for remote communication. Some of the people whose friendship I most cherish, I have never met in person.

I dedicated my book Cheerleading for Writers to one of my dearest friends, whom I have yet to meet in person. Marcy and I met over my blog and her comments on some of the very first blog posts back in 2013. Then we started e-mailing, sending each other letters. And nowadays we talk over the phone about once a month. She lives in the US on the West Coast, and I live in Denmark. She grew up in the USA and lived in different states with different climates. I grew up in Moldova (which used to be part of the former Soviet Union and is now a sovereign country), with a detour for three years in Algeria, when I was little, and, later, Germany for twelve years before my husband and I moved to Denmark. Marcy is also from another generation. She is in her eighties and is one year older than my mother. I am forty-seven at the time of writing this. And yet, our friendship is one of the most harmonic I have ever experienced and one of the dearest to me.

In the global and interconnected age, many of us have heard of friendships that started online. Some years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. But having had such an experience (and not only once), I now know that it is possible. You can communicate hope and support to others with a kind word over the phone or on a video chat. You can empower others that way. I am immensely grateful for this possibility. It helps me feel less powerless. We get stronger when we empower others. Just like love and happiness, empowering others multiplies and empowers us back.

So, the situation during the lockdown is different for each of us, but the anthropological approach to my life revealed that I was prepared. There were many different experiences in the past, which I could use as tools now. These experiences showed me one big thing: I am capable of mastering this situation. I am not alone. I can ask for help. In at least some cases, I can help myself; and I can help others.

The situation with the COVID-19 pandemic might mean “the end of the world as we know it.” But it’s not the end of the world. It is not the end of you, because you are here, right now. You are reading these words at this moment. So you still have “lives” left, to conquer the odds and to defeat that dragon of despair. And not only that. However unrealistic it might seem, you can still go after your dreams, even those you might be unaware of having. You can do it even now, during lockdown.

This was an excerpt from my book Gameful Isolation: Making the Best of a Crisis, the Self-Gamification Way. I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you would like to get access to the vlog accompanying the book then check out this page: Gameful Isolation.

And here is the video to the excerpt above:

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About the author:

Victoria is a writer, instructor, and consultant with a background in semiconductor physics, electronic engineering (with a Ph.D.), information technology, and business development. While being a non-gamer, Victoria came up with the term Self-Gamification, a gameful and playful self-help approach bringing anthropology, kaizen, and gamification-based methods together to increase the quality of life. She approaches all areas of her life this way. Due to the fun she has, while turning everything in her life into games, she intends never to stop designing and playing them.