The current circumstances with having to deal with two crises at once – the Corona and climate crisis – puts a lot of tension on many of us. Most experience it as a very unpleasant situation. So what can you do to feel better?
Whenever you are in an unpleasant situation, you can decide to do nothing and continue to feel miserable. But the good news is that in any such situation you can do something to feel better:
1) do something about it (act),
2) leave the situation (abandon) or
3) make the most out of it (accept).
Act
The first way to improve an unpleasant situation is by acting. This means that you’re actively changing your behavior: by doing things differently, the result will be different. As Albert Einstein put it: If you want different results, do not do the same things.
Abandon
A second way to improve an unpleasant situation is by abandoning it. In general, abandoning allows you to physically distance yourself from it. This involves for example quitting a job or breaking up a relationship. In other crises, such as climate change, this is for me not an option as it would mean leaving earth.
Accept
The third way to improve an unpleasant situation is by accepting it. This means that you take the situation as it is and make the most of it. In other words: you stop swimming against the current and just go with the flow.
This saves a lot of energy which you can put in creating more pleasant experiences. With the Coronavirus, social distancing is actually one of the best ways we can stop the transmission of the virus. I accept this by staying at home, putting more time in my sustainability project and stay healthy by doing sports.
So, in any crisis, it’s up to you which strategy you choose. By applying any of these strategies, your situation will inevitably change. And even if the new situation hasn’t improved, it is a different unpleasant situation, in which you can again choose to act, abandon or accept.
