Kate Norlander

Not that long ago, I recommended picking a reasonable number of priorities and letting them guide your decisions.

But what if everything seems urgent?

Suppose you have decided that your priorities are blogging about the climate crisis, raising your children, looking for a new job, finishing the remodeling work you started on your kitchen, and following your doctor’s recommendation to exercise for 30 minutes at least five days a week. That’s a pretty good list.

But you’ve started to get concerned about the upcoming election, and you want to do something to make a difference. Recent news is compelling you to take some sort of action on systemic racism. You received an email from an organization that needs support to fight the coronavirus in the Navajo Nation. And one of your friends seems deeply depressed, which worries you.

It’s all so very urgent.

When it feels like the world’s on fire, where do you even start?

When faced with one urgent matter after another, it can be tempting to try to tackle them all… or to give up and watch Netflix.

Here are some alternative ways to prioritize when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

• Adjust your priorities — temporarily or more permanently. When you look at your list of current priorities, are there things you can delete or put off? If you’re unemployed, you almost certainly don’t want to remove your job search from your priority list. But if you are looking because want something different, maybe you can delay the job search for a while in favor of other priorities, such as reaching out to your friend more often.
• Separate your time priorities from your financial priorities. Do you have room in your budget for an additional financial contribution? Consider giving to a cause that moves you without including it among the priorities that demand your time and attention. To make it really easy, you can automate your giving if you plan on supporting the cause regularly.
• Make a one-time contribution. If you feel that you can’t ignore that urgent appeal, make a one-time donation. Then return to your previously chosen priorities. But by “contribution,” I don’t just mean monetary contributions. Maybe you can’t donate money, but you can take a day to make phone calls to get out the vote. One day of volunteering allows you to respond to an urgent appeal without overhauling your priorities.
• Make minimally disruptive changes to your life. Sometimes you can respond to something that moves you without needing to make room for it on your calendar or in your budget. If you’re concerned about racism, maybe you can commit to shopping at some black-owned businesses instead of a couple of chains you normally patronize. You might need to do some research first, but once you have, you can just adjust your shopping habits without changing your current list of priorities.
• Just say “no.” None of us can do everything. That’s hard to remember when we are faced with all of the problems that come to our attention each day. There are times when you will need to adjust or add to your priorities, at least temporarily. But most of the time you need to allow your priorities to focus your efforts. Otherwise you’ll spread yourself too thin.

It can be hard to stick to our priorities in the face of troubling news and worthy appeals. But if we combine a commitment to focusing on a few key things with a little flexibility and creativity, we can accomplish far more than we will if we try to take on everything.

Being an introvert has its advantages. I find it easier than many extroverts to avoid mingling with lots of people, though I do miss things like hugging a friend or visiting an art museum.

But after days of staying at home with my family, I feel like climbing the walls. I miss the time when I had more opportunities to be completely alone for a few hours. One day I considered getting ice cream, driving to my favorite park, finding a deserted bench, and enjoying my treat all by myself.

I talked myself out of it, telling myself I didn’t need to spend money that way. Besides, the park I wanted to go to is popular and might be too crowded. And it was more important to get stuff done around the house.

A few days later I told a friend about this, and she replied, “You should have gone.”

She was right. I should have. The ice cream wasn’t important, but when I dismissed my need for alone time, I denied myself an important form of self-care. And if I go long enough without taking care of myself, I become cranky and unpleasant to be around.

What do I mean by self-care?

Different people and organizations may focus on different aspects of self-care when defining it. Some are primarily concerned with the health-related aspects of self-care, such as exercise and good nutrition. Others focus on self-care as self-discipline, which can include physical health but goes beyond that. Still others seem to equate self-care with treats.

I think self-care starts with reflecting on what you need and thinking of ways to meet those needs. The folks who focus on physical health are right: you need good food and plenty of sleep. Likewise, you need to discipline yourself to work toward your goals. But you also may need to do something a little more on the “indulgent side,” like giving your aching feet a massage. Self-care is whatever you need. There are some universal basic human needs, but I can’t tell you what’s missing from your life right now. You’ll need to figure that out yourself.

The heavier life feels, the more you need this.

The more you feel like you don’t have the time or energy for self-care, the more you need it.

For example…

• Have you been involved in protests or volunteer efforts lately? You may feel like taking time for yourself is selfish, but it’s important to recharge so that you have the energy to pursue a more just world.
• Have you been working from home and caring for your children at the same time? You may feel that you don’t have time to take a break, but you’ll be a better parent and worker for it.
• Are you in a job that exposes you to the public and puts you at greater risk of exposure to the coronavirus? Self-care can help you reign in anxiety and refuel after exhausting days.
• Are you struggling with depression, barely able to get out of bed each day? Your form of self-care might look more like the self-discipline variety as you set small goals that can help you feel better.

Here are a few ways to integrate self-care into your life:

• As I said above, self-care is about meeting your needs, whatever those are. If you haven’t thought about what’s missing from your life right now, take some time to do that. Then figure out realistic ways to meet those needs. If you’re lonely, you might arrange to meet a friend outside for conversation. If you’re a single parent and need some downtime by yourself, you might need to put the kids to bed early once a week and spend the rest of the evening relaxing, instead of doing housework.
• Ruthlessly cut back on things. I’m bad at this. I sign up for lots of email lists and then stress out about all the messages in my inbox. I have to force myself to unsubscribe from emails I enjoy. There’s too much good stuff out there. When it becomes a burden, it’s time to remind ourselves that we can’t read (or watch or listen to) all of the good things. We have to let things go. If I cut back too much (unlikely), I can always add things back again.
• Control what you see on social media. If you don’t want to unfriend someone on Facebook, you can unfollow them. On Twitter, you can mute people while still following them. You can also hide ads that are upsetting or too tempting. We all have better things to do than get embroiled in arguments that we’re never going to win.
• To busy parents: I’m about to say something to you that I hated hearing when I was working full-time and parenting a young child. Lower your standards. I know that you may already feel like your standards are incredibly low. It seemed like I was always reading about how moms should clean less often to make more time for self-care. I wanted to reply, “Come over and see my house, and then tell me if I should clean less often.” If you also feel like your housework standards are already low, and you still don’t have time for self-care, look beyond the obvious ways to lower your standards. If you are married and your kids insist that you are the only person who can put them to bed, be firm and switch off the bedtime routine with your spouse. They’ll get over it, and you’ll have some time that you can use on self-care (not another load of laundry!).

Whatever you do, don’t talk yourself out of self-care. You’ve heard before, and it’s true: You can’t help others if you don’t take care of yourself.

Note: This week’s post was supposed to be in the “something wonderful” category, but it felt too frivolous after the events of last week. I promise to post something lighter next week.

When I initially conceived of this post, it was in light of the pandemic, although I always intended it to encompass other events, such as the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.

Then George Floyd was murdered.

It feels like everything is falling apart. There is so much hatred and suffering. We are worn out from all of the bad news.

There are many things we need if we want the world to change for the better. But it may be that the one thing we need most is empathy.

Why empathy?

If we are to stop the hate and work together for the good of all, we must be able to understand the suffering of others. In Central Park, a white woman displayed a complete lack of empathy for a black man when she called the police, claiming he was threatening her and her dog, because he asked her to obey a leash law. In Connecticut, a protester who wrote “Your health is not more important than my liberties!!” on their car window showed a lack of empathy for those who are at most at risk should they be exposed to the coronavirus. When we treat refugees as criminals, we lack empathy.

What does empathy look like?

• When we are empathetic, we recognize that others have as much value as we do. This is why protesters proclaim “Black lives matter.” Too often, these protesters have been told they are being disrespectful or too political (as football players have been told when they take a knee during the national anthem), or they are “corrected” with the statement “All lives matter.” But saying that black lives matter is not saying that other lives matter less. Rather, it points to the way that black lives have been devalued for far too long.
• When we are empathetic, we listen. The riots that have occurred over the past week are complex. They have been fed, in part, by people who are not sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement but who are using Floyd’s death to achieve their own ends. But they also have been expressions of anger from people who have not been listened to. For generations, black Americans have been victims of violence, and those who have killed them have been exonerated in court. For generations, black Americans have been treated suspiciously for doing things that white people take for granted, such as stopping to look at a construction site while jogging. (My husband, who is white, stops to look at things that attract his curiosity when we walk together. No one has chased him down or called the police.)
• When we are empathetic, we act. If we say we value others and that we are listening, but we fail to act, our words are empty. I have said before that we cannot do everything, that we must pick our causes, and that is true. But there are times when the pain of those around us is so great that we must do something. Speak up. Make a donation. Call someone with political power. Do something. Because when we ignore the suffering of those around us, we are complicit with those who actively hate and oppress them.

The topic of this post is distressing, but I ask my readers to take a deep breath and look further into the future than early fall.

Here in the United States, individual states are beginning to relax the restrictions put in place to try to flatten the curve. In response, people are flocking to restaurants, bars, and shopping areas, neither wearing masks nor social distancing. Of course, many people are maintaining the habits they established over the last couple of months. But others, overjoyed at the end to stay-at-home orders, are ready to return to normal. I get it. Even an introvert like me can get fed up with so much time at home, away from people I’d like to see face-to-face.

But epidemiologists have pointed out that we’re not out of the woods yet. And history backs them up. The 1918 flu pandemic was brutal, killing more U.S. soldiers than died in battle in World War I. It disrupted the economy. And it lasted more than a year, starting in the spring of 1918 in a relatively mild form and then coming back in the fall in a deadlier fashion. The pandemic came to an end in the summer of 1919.

There are a lot of unanswered questions around the coronavirus, and the U.S. changed a lot in 100 years. Just how much this pandemic will resemble that deadly flu remains to be seen. We don’t know if having the virus offers durable immunity, a necessity if we are to achieve herd immunity. We don’t know if the virus will mutate. Despite promises, we don’t know when a vaccine or cure will be available. Although the news is sometimes hopeful — as I write this, the headlines are proclaiming that there are some promising human safety trials underway for one vaccine — the fact is that vaccines normally take years to develop.

If it’s going to be a long haul, what can we do?

We often laud the parents of Baby Boomers — known as the Greatest Generation — for their willingness to make sacrifices for the greater good during World War II. Now is the time for us to imitate them and pull together, adjusting our attitudes and behaviors for the sake of those around us.

• We can heed the call of people like North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, who asked people to stop making masks a political issue. We can, as he advised, “dial up [our] empathy and… understanding.” Wearing a mask isn’t about being fearful. It’s about caring for others.
• Building on that point, we can stop seeing our choices as a matter of personal risk, and start asking ourselves how our choices are putting others at risk.
• We can develop patience and a willingness to endure hardship for the greater good.
• We can stay home — from work, from running errands, from social events — when we are sick. I acknowledge that there are people who have no paid sick leave and who may be putting their jobs on the line if they call in sick. So…
• As I’ve noted in this blog before, we can pass legislation that requires employers to provide paid sick leave for their employees, not merely for COVID-19 but for other illnesses.
• Employers can encourage employees to continue telecommuting at least part of the time if they are able to perform their duties at home. (Some large tech companies, including Facebook and Google, have already done this.)
• Democrats and Republicans can come together to provide better long-term relief for people who have lost their jobs and for struggling small businesses.
• We can exercise our creativity and look for solutions to problems caused or exacerbated by this pandemic, including unemployment, mental health issues, and domestic violence.

We must not allow a second wave to surprise us.

I will jump for joy if this pandemic comes to an end in the near future. But we shouldn’t count on that. We need to prepare now for the possibility that we will face future shut-downs, if not as a nation (something we haven’t done so far) at least in specific areas. We need to make sure we are well-equipped for a surge in hospitalizations. We need to expect that we may face further layoffs if a surge in illnesses causes more people to stay home — voluntarily or not.

Optimism can be a wonderful thing. When we enter a period of difficulty feeling sure that it will be over soon, that can give us strength to tackle our most difficult days. But we need to temper that optimism with a dose of reality. Sometimes difficulties last much longer than we would like. We need to be prepared to deal with this epidemic for many more months, even as we hope that we are wrong and that the threat will be over soon.

In late March, one of my friends shared this quote from The Fellowship of the Ring:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf. “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Why did I need to be reminded that real adventures can be awful? A couple of years ago, I wrote this in a blog post on prioritizing discomfort:

But there is another part of me that craves adventure, and with adventure comes discomfort. It’s not the part of adventure that most of us yearn for. We want to see the world without being rained on or running low on food, thank you very much. But you can’t have a real adventure without opening yourself up to being uncomfortable.

I know that, but I tend to conveniently forget it. As I said, discomfort isn’t the part of adventure that most of us yearn for. So when I think about adventure, I think about going new places, meeting new people, and doing new things. I imagine that, if I encounter anything scary, it won’t be too scary. Just a mild thrill like I might feel on a roller coaster.

This moment has lots of the stuff that real adventures bring. Basics that we took for granted — like cleaning supplies and toilet paper and food staples — may be missing from store shelves. We are physically separated from people we love. We avoid going out unnecessarily, and when we must go out, we wear masks and steer clear of others out of consideration for them. Our world has been turned upside down.

And this adventure goes far beyond the mere discomfort of not finding what we need in the grocery store. It’s downright scary. We’re scared of the coronavirus and scared of losing our jobs. We’re scared for ourselves and for others. The uncertainty is driving us crazy. How long will this go on? When will things ever return to normal, and what will “normal” look like?

When we watch a superhero movie or read a fantasy novel or sit down for an episode of Dr. Who, we expect that things will turn out okay. The heroes will save the day. Beloved characters may die, but they will not die in vain. After watching Avengers: End Game, how many of us started speculating about how the next movie would fix things? No matter how awful a book or movie or TV show gets, we expect that there will be some version of “happily ever after” in the end.

But if we were actually in the adventures we enjoy vicariously experiencing, we might not feel so confident. Frodo trudged toward his goal with a will to destroy the Ring but with little certainty that he would succeed. What could one hobbit do, even with a friend to support him, against so much evil? Real adventures are full uncertainty. They can leave you quaking in your boots.

This doesn’t feel like an adventure.

How many adventures can you think of that don’t involve travel? Even when adventures occur in dreams, the dreamers travel through places like Wonderland or Unknown Kadath. Novelty is key to adventures. But many of us are staying at home as much as possible, and one day becomes much like the other. The only novelty we’re experiencing is the need to narrow our lives in ways we never have before while we face a situation we never have before.

If this is an adventure, we want no part of it. We may be experiencing all of the fear and unpleasantness that come with real adventures, but we have none of the excitement and discovery that we expect from adventures.

And how can we be the heroes we dream of becoming when we’re trapped in our homes, binging on Netflix so that we can drown out our fears for a while? The real heroes are the medical professionals, the grocery store workers, the delivery drivers, right?

If you ask them, many of those people will tell you they don’t want to be applauded as heroes. People who work at grocery stores never expected to put their lives on the line for our sake. One grocery store employee writes, “Cashiers and shelf-stockers and delivery-truck drivers aren’t heroes. They’re victims.” Health care professionals are tired of taking risks that could be mitigated with more personal protective equipment. In the words of one nurse, “We went to war without a gun.” Tired and lonely and frightened and stretched to the breaking point, another nurse writes, “I don’t feel like I’m nearly enough. That is why I tell people not to call me a hero. To me, it feels like a lie.”

This is an adventure that doesn’t feel like an adventure and that none of us want. It’s an adventure in which few of us are willing to play a hero’s role.

So what do we do?

It would be ridiculous for me to say that we simply need to reframe the present moment as an adventure, embrace it, and move forward. Reframing is a useful psychological tool, but I’d feel like a fraud if I just told readers to find the silver lining in the present moment.

I will say this: We all have every right to hate this experience. It’s okay to feel depressed and frightened and angry. It’s normal to wish this was all over or, better yet, all a bad dream. You don’t have to embrace this adventure or want to be a hero in it. And you don’t have to stop escaping into tales of adventure either.

But I will suggest that if you, like me, are mostly at home, and if it would help sometimes to experience this moment as an adventure — one that was forced upon you and that you’d give up if you could — then it’s time to embrace your inner Frodo and do whatever you can, however small the task and however inadequate you feel. You already know that some people are making masks, and as a recipient of a homemade mask, I am grateful to those people. But if making masks isn’t your thing, there’s far more that you can do:

• You can wear a mask when you go out and practice social distancing. Most masks are for protecting others far more than they are for your own protection, so choosing to wear a mask is an act of consideration for those around you. I confess that I do not wear a mask when I take walks, because I only have one, and I walk in areas that are not busy and where I can steer clear of others. But if you will be near others, one of the kindest things you can do is wear a mask.
• You can buy groceries for people who are more at risk than you are. In addition to helping those people stay safe, you will help reduce crowding in stores.
• You can donate blood or, better yet, platelets. If you’ve recovered from COVID-19, the American Red Cross would like your plasma.
• If you have the money, you can support small businesses by purchasing gift cards or possibly by making a purchase for delivery or curbside pickup. You also can support nonprofits with your donations.
• You can be supportive of others, doing what you can to help them get through this. That can range from simply checking in with friends to finding ways to entertain others, such as creating a teddy bear hunt.

What if you’re one of the essential workers?

You have every right to be angry. Many of the people who call you a hero are benefiting from the risks you are forced to take — risks that they may not be taking. If you felt like you had a choice, you’d walk away from this. It’s hell. Forget this talk about heroes!

But heroes don’t always volunteer for that role. They don’t necessarily like it. They may feel angry or frightened or like they’re doing a terrible job, but they do what they must — what others see as heroic — because they feel like they have no other choice. It’s okay to tell people that you don’t want to be called a hero. It’s wonderful to stand up for yourself and say that what you really need is more personal protective equipment or for people to wear masks in your presence. But please don’t feel like you don’t deserve to be called a hero because you are scared or feel incompetent or never asked for this role.

I know that none of what I’m saying makes the situation better. I’m a writer, but this isn’t my story to control; I can’t write us all a happy ending. All I can say is this: If this is our adventure — this thing that none of wish was happening in our time — then we may as well grit our teeth and fight our way through. Let’s think of each other as teammates, all trying to beat this thing together, and let’s try to have each other’s backs — even if it’s by keeping our distance in order to keep our teammates safe.