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By Jacob Banta
Ask anyone around you if they would want the Covid era of isolation to end right now. You would receive a resounding yes. Given the choice, many would even rewind the clock back to March wishing they never experienced quarantine. It's personally tempting for me. Being a freshman I missed out on the end of high school and the transition to college never felt real. I’ll never experience that common milestone of every other year before me. Though I wouldn’t say this life is all that bad. I definitely value a sense of community more than I did before and I know this change of pace has caused personal growth for many people. Still, was it worth getting kicked out of the normal way of things just to see the world and ourselves in a different light?
To answer that question we must first ask ourselves, was our old life ever even normal to begin with? I know personally highschool was a scramble. Every day I kept myself busy with something to do. Joining a club or devoting time to maintaining my GPA. Managing a social life while being a top student. My utmost concern was preparing myself for the future, whether that be earning college scholarships or staying healthy mentally and physically. I was prideful in my ability to juggle it all. Most people in college would at least admit to themselves that they pride themselves in their ability to get here. Look at your own life. What was important to you and where did you spend your time? Are you still living the same way?
Now living in a future I did not expect I can realize just how empty my pursuits were. If our first thought in the present is worrying about the future then an unexpected future will crush us. All that planning was worthless. I would argue that the old life of being an anxious busy body was never what normal was supposed to be. Life since the beginning of college has started to ramp up speed but I found true reflection in the late spring in summer of Covid. The world felt like it came to a stand still. People didn’t know what to do with themselves. Everyone was so used to running around, they didn’t know how to just be still. We went from full speed to a complete stop. Now living in the latter I realize just how tiring and unfulfilling the first was.
So what’s the point? Can any lessons really be gathered from an event that flipped life upside down? It's reasonable that such a drastic change should cause all of us to address some facts about ourselves. We are worrisome creatures. At our very core, we don’t like uncertainty. More than the actual dangerous nature of Covid we all despised it because it messed with our normal lives. We just want to be left alone to our devices. We don’t like anything telling us we have to change how we’re living,
I ask you to take this opportunity you have been given to stop and look at how much energy you spent sprinting into the unknown. It was never truly normal and should never of been the way all of us lived. If the sole purpose of man is to run forward then his goal is to reach death quicker. Don’t be in such a hurry. Step away from the race that leads to death. Embrace a new normal of planning for the future but not expecting anything. Be content walking in the present knowing that the future is uncertain. Just because you have been given legs that can run, doesn’t mean they were intended for more than walking. Enjoy life where you are right now one step at a time. Has worrying ever added a single hour to your life?
Jacob Banta is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2024. He is studying political science and engineering at the University of Louisville.