Nothing.

The Necessities lately.

So far, 2020 isn’t exactly what we might have expected it to be. I don’t know about everybody else, but I went into 2020 thinking that everything was going to be amazing. That could be hopeful or naive, I’m not completely sure. But it goes without saying that 2020, although we are only three months in, has been incredibly difficult for a lot of people. I mean, it has definitely been a weird and unexpected start to the year. Nonetheless, I wanted to offer some of my thoughts. As I was going through my daily writing, I realized that I haven’t really written a blog post in awhile. The reason that I even write these blog posts is to hopefully help someone take on a different perspective in life and see it through my eyes. I’m not saying that my perspective on life is any better than the next guy’s, but I feel that giving someone a perspective on life other than their own may be helpful. After all, that’s why I’m a photographer, to show people life through my eyes and hopefully impact someone in a positive way. I digress.

This morning’s topic in my journal was centered around this shelter in place that we are currently in in the Bay Area and the time that we have during this lockdown. For a lot of people, this lockdown can be looked at as something negative. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, nobody to talk to, just nothing. But maybe ‘nothing’ isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As we go through our daily lives, there is always ‘something.’ We’re constantly in this mode of go go go and I’ll sleep when I’m dead. The way that I’m looking at it, this pause in the world could be a good thing. And before we go any further, I understand that there are so many different aspects of life affected by the coronavirus and this lockdown. I know people are worried about their finances and jobs, people’s health is obviously at stake and there are just so many different things going on. Trust me, I get it. But I’m focusing on what could be a positive out of what is an overwhelmingly negative situation. 

This pause in the world is good in some ways. I know that the topic of mental health has been something that has been growing and gaining more attention over the last couple of years. One positive that we can take out of this situation is actually using this time to take care of our mental. People often use the excuse that they do not have any time to really take care of themselves because they just have so many different things to take care of and so many things to do. Great, now we have ‘nothing’ to do. We can use this time to make sure that we are just as healthy mentally as we are physically. The mental game is half (if not more) the battle and the part of the battle that we often neglect because of the world we live in that constantly demands that we are always going at lightspeed. Use this time to figure out how to slow down and breathe. It’s okay to use this time to do ‘nothing’ and sit down for awhile to breathe because we all know damn well that once the world is back to normal, we’re all just going back to go go go and forgetting to breathe. You don’t have to always feel the need to do something ‘productive.’ Sometimes, doing ‘nothing’ is even more productive than doing ‘something.’

Another thing that I’ve found to be a positive is the fact that I have more time to spend with the people that I love. For me personally, my career has been starting to take off over the last year. With that, I’m home less and less. With all the traveling, gigs, shoots, or simply isolating myself to grind throughout the week, I feel that I’ve missed out on a good amount with my friends and family. The thing that has been great for me has been being able to sit down and spend more time with my family. Not that I didn’t spend any time with my family before, but sometimes I just get so caught up in the grind of things that the quality time isn’t fully there. Being someone who has to keep up with what’s going on in the world (or maybe its FOMO), my mind is always wandering. With this time, I’ve been able to try to be more present with the people in my life because we all have the time right now. Most of us are working from home, so there’s really no reason that we can’t stop for a little bit to hang out. Again, we don’t always have to be doing ‘something.’ We can do ‘nothing’ with the people that we love. Whether that is in person, on FaceTime, or just texting or calling. Take some time out of your abundance of free time to check on your people and make sure that everyone is good. There’s no excuse right now not to.

In saying all of this, I’m not saying not to work on whatever it is you’re working on. I’m still working incredibly hard every day (I also work from home every day anyway and I’m used to this social distancing lmao). What I’m really saying is that it’s okay to do ‘nothing’ at some point. ‘Nothing’ is good right now. Every day, we are overwhelmed with so much of ‘something.’ So right now, it’s good. I know we all want the world to go back to normal. 2020 has been garbage so far. But there’s so much of the year left and hopefully something good will happen soon. We all need it. But until then, we have to focus on the good that we can focus on. Whether that is time to breathe and kick it with the family, free NBA League Pass, Call of Duty Warzone, or Jay Electronica’s album, there’s still some positives in these hard times. We just have to focus on them. Stay healthy, stay safe, and remember that sometimes, it’s okay to do ‘Nothing.’ 

To Live and Prosper 

- JSquared