In January of 2020 I was walking my dog Benji with my fiancée.

 

We always enjoy our conversations during his evening walk, and we're admiring how chill is the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood that we lived in then was amazing when it came to peacefulness. No tension, no disturbance, not a single threat. Nothing was actually happening... EVER.

 

We were even joking that it's actually TOO peaceful because NOTHING ever happened there, it felt like cheating life. Like we found this hidden place where we can feel safe and completely relaxed.

 

We often talked about how grateful we are that we can just walk our dog in peace and nothing serious is happening in our lives. There are no threats. Everyone that we love is healthy and alive. We have stable income, and everything is going great. What can go wrong?

 

From time to time during our we asked ourselves "can you imagine if all of this is taken from us one day? Like even this simple walk that we're enjoying. Imagine that we cannot do it anymore. Is that even possible?"

 

Now, you might think what I'm saying is bullshit, and it sounds like a setup for the next part of the article, but we actually had this one discussion so many times. However, we never took it that seriously because deep down we were assured that everything we have in life is a guarantee, and we couldn't even imagine what would disturb that peace.

 

Then I saw a video from Wuhan on Reddit. A bunch of people screaming on their balconies because they are locking them in their homes. What is going on? It was horrifying. Like something out of a movie. I showed her the video and she said "wow, I cannot imagine something like this happening in our area". We keep scrolling through all of these disasters in the world thinking that we're untouchable and we'll never be affected by anything. We're safe, right?

 

Welp. It happened.

 

A few weeks later we were in quarantine. We took the pandemic super seriously (AS ONE SHOULD WITH A GODDAMN PANDEMIC THAT WOULD'VE BEEN DONE BY KNOW IF YOU ACTUALLY LISTENED AND GOT THE GODDAMN VACC-, nvm, let's not go there)

 

We almost never left the apartment in the beginning. Our walk had to be shortened and restricted. We had to wear masks everywhere, even outside. We started crossing the street when another human was coming our way.

 

WELL OF COURSE WE DID BECAUSE THE MASK GOES A B O V E THE NO- nvm, nvm, let's continue.

 

We couldn't do our restaurant dates, or go to the movies, or basically live normally. It felt like the world collapsed in an instant. It felt crushing. We lost our precious walk. We lost the feeling of peace.

 

Most people couldn't deal with this. They demanded to get their parties, restaurants, and lives back. I didn't resist at all. I immediately started accepting the idea that mother earth can just decide that we're absolutely fucked at any given moment. We can protest all day, but there's nothing that we can do about it.

 

We don't want to believe that things can be taken away from us. We take everything that we're enjoying right now for granted, every single day. I'm talking about the basic things: our limbs, eyesight, hearing, the fact that we were lucky enough to be born at a location that's not torn by war.

 

We don't give a shit about any of this. The LIMBS? The WiFi SUCKS! My phone is slow, doing dishes is annoying, my instagram photos are not instagrammy enough, my TikTok of my unique dance moves doesn't have enough views, uuuughhh guyysss being an adult is sooo haaaard.

 

Boo hoo. Go read Anne Frank's diary.

 

I tried the "Anne Frank House VR" for 10 minutes before ripping my headset off and hugging my coffee table while thanking it for its existence. It's horrifying to imagine living life like that.

 

However, despite her horrible situation, anytime she had access to the window she would admire a tree in front of the house. She would say that nature is beautiful and life is amazing.

 

WHAT.

 

HOW???

 

LOCK ME ANYWHERE FOR EVEN A FEW HOURS AND I'LL SAY FUCK THAT PARTICULAR TREE AND FUCK ALL THE OTHER TREES IN THE WORLD.

 

WE HAVE POCKET COMPUTERS THAT ARE CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY UNLIMITED SOURCES OF ENTERTAINMENT AND PEOPLE STILL SAY "UGHHH GUIISEEE I'M BOOORED" WE CAN WATCH PEOPLE FALLING FROM STAIRS OF MILK CRATES FOR FUN FFS

 

HOW ARE WE NOT HAPPY WITH ANYTHING?!?!??!?

 

How do we go from our bullshit ways to Anne Frank's level of appreciating life? It's really hard, but it's possible.

 

The solution is practicing gratitude every day. Even for a few minutes.

 

I started doing a "5 min gratitude journal" at the beginning of this year and it's amazing. 3 minutes in the morning, 2 minutes at night.

 

The things that I'm writing in it sound mostly silly, but those are the things that we need to be happy about.

 

• My parents are still alive.
• I fixed something with my dad
• Benji made me laugh during a walk
• Had a great chat with the team today
• Played board games with a friend
• etc.

takes a shower after publicly sharing this cringe

 

Practicing gratefulness and writing these things down sounds cheesy, but I'm not taking anything for granted anymore.

 

Appreciate the normalcy. The privilege that we have. The fact that you can go for a walk with no disturbance. Appreciate the health of your family. Appreciate that your pet is still around (actually go pet it right now because it's probably bored while you're reading this article)

 

11 years ago, my grandpa wanted to spend more time with me. I didn't understand why, so of course I chose to spend my time on MSN and Counter Strike instead.

 

It was soul-crushing when my parents told me that he died of lung cancer and he didn't want to concern me. I would give everything that I have right now to go and spend even a moment with him.

 

Appreciate your grandparents being around.

 

Appreciate if you had a normal day and nothing bad happened.

 

That is an AMAZING day!