Spare Time

Hello everybody! It’s your guy Eddy! It’s been quite awhile since we’ve last spoken. What like 3-4 weeks no? It’s definitely been a good while and I can only hope that everyone is doing well during these tough times. It’s not easy living through a gritty historical event such as this. I can tell that a good majority of you are stuck at home without having to worry about going to school or even work. I can somewhat imagine that most of us would have loved the idea of not having to go to school/work and would get to stay home the whole time. Well...we’re living through that reality whether we wished for it or not. And you’ll find that you have a lot more free time which I can only assume that you’ll be spending cooped up in your rooms. And with that, I would like to bring up the next topic of discussion I would like to call…

Spare Time

For the most part, spare time has been a great way to relieve ourselves of the ongoing stress from our busy lifestyles. We need that break to forget about the frustrating busywork of school or having to focus on passing a test that can make or break your future. Taking a break is also important to the mind and body as it allows you to focus your attention on replenishing your energy so you can take on the rest of the tasks without fear of exhausting yourself. And I can only imagine that most of us would spend any second we have for break time on the following: television, social media, video games, chatting with friends, napping etc. And while they’re not entirely bad choices when it comes to breaks, it can be potentially harmful to overdo it with those fields.

Let’s start with one of the main ideas. Your mental health will suffer if you’re not careful with how you manage yourself while indoors. Everyone will be affected by staying indoors for much longer than is required. People such as extroverts will find it difficult to be trapped inside for so long and with little to do to keep them occupied. Even the most introverted of us will start to feel antsy regarding boundaries enforced upon us by circumstance and not by choice. We can only go so long staying cooped up in our rooms without feeling frustrated by the inability to leave the house. Regardless if you’re an introvert or an extrovert, human beings are social creatures by nature. We thrive and depend on interactions with other people as well as stepping outside the comforts of our home to venture to the outside world. The degree to which we suffer will be related to your mental health baseline and physical health. I also feel that it’s important to understand and remember that being stuck at home isn’t your fault. While it may be easy to blame someone and take out our frustration on them for putting us in this situation, it won’t help your mental health in the long run. Stimuli and enrichment methods are required so that we don’t risk falling into depressed states. Here is a passage from Proverbs 17:22 that touches on this

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” - Proverbs 17:22

Based on this passage, it’s important to ensure that your spirit is strengthened by positivity and productivity so that your body can stay strong during these trying times. If we are unable to maintain our spirits strong, then we can very well risk hurting our own bodies. So that’s why we need to figure out ways to focus our attention and skills on activities that can promote positivity. The next big idea, which actually ties in with the hobbies I listed in the beginning, is to understand which activities are active and passive for you. There’s a strong difference between active and passive activities. Active activities require you to be more involved in a physical and mental sense while passive activities are more along the lines of leisure hobbies that require minimal effort from your mind and body and grants you a boost of dopamine, a chemical in your brain, which stimulates a moment of temporary pleasure. Spending your confinement solely doing passive things ( like watching TV, Netflix, browsing the internet, scrolling through Wikipedia articles for random information) will take a load off your brain and make the time pass quicker while giving you that boost of joy to make the day more bearable. But if that’s all you do, the sense of disconnection increases over time. And what’s disconnection? It basically means isolation from those around you as you devote more of your time to passive activities in order to achieve some level of satisfaction. As you binge watch or scroll the internet, you’ll find that your interest in such subjects becomes more of a chore rather than something that used to bring you joy. That’s because your body has become so accustomed to the same repetitive actions that you longer feel content with the same activity. You’re hungry for something different and exciting. Something that will be more engaging for you that your current activities just aren’t doing for you anymore. Activities which require you to do something, aka active activities, involve using your more advanced physical or mental capabilities to complete a given task. Your motor skills will be more than necessary to accomplish a grand number of activities that can be performed outside of your own bedroom. Activities such as exercising via yoga, stretching, running in place, carrying and moving around heavy objects etc. Or perhaps you can engage in mental exercises to strengthen your brain and keep yourself sharp. Examples include actively reading books at home or on the web, or catching up on important homework and projects. Considering that most of you have online classes, it would be wise to devote a lot of your spare time to finishing those assignments or ensuring that you understand the material that is taught to you. And if you find that you finished your homework, then it’s also the perfect opportunity to fine tune your special talents. From singing, to writing, building things out of random stuff, drawing, working out, cooking, even playing video games. With all that extra free time, you now have the chance to actually work on your talents to either improve your skills or to try new talents that you’ve wanted to try for quite awhile now. Take this passage from Romans 12:6-8.

“In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.” - Romans 12:6-8

God gave each and every one of us a special talent or skill to call our own. And it is up to us to discover that gift, strengthen it to the best of our abilities, and share that talent with the world around us. These deliberate acts foster a tiny sense of achievement which gives your brain a dose of helpful chemicals that give you the satisfaction you deserve. Balancing out your media intake with active and passive activities keeps your brain active and pumping tasty neurotransmitters. And speaking of media… It’s important to limit your usage of social media for social purposes rather than using it as an ongoing activity throughout the day. Infinite scrolling as found on many social media platforms can be seen as an active activity considering that your mind is at work as it analyzes and judges each and every post your eyes pick up on. It can challenge your brain to react to a given subject or topic that is shown and you will decide if you agree or disagree with the subject. However, it is crucial that you don’t become dependent on scrolling through social media for the sake of satisfaction. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that it can have a negative impact on your mental state as your mind becomes dependent on new posts with new or familiar subject matter. You find yourself going back to your phone refreshing the screen in the hopes that one of the users you follow released something new for you to enjoy. But what you don’t realize is that it’s barely been 2 minutes since you last refreshed but your mind is desperate for new content so it barely fazes you. I ended up in a state of disconnection where I became isolated by my personal interests and could no longer find joy in the same content that I was used to. It’s perfectly normal to browse through social media and see what types of posts are out there for the sake of relieving yourself. But you learn to limit yourself on how much social media you consume so you don’t become dependent on it. The importance of social media is to connect with other friends and interact with them based on personal interests. You must use them to interact with your friends, family members or close ones that you trust so you can engage in social interaction. Person to person interaction requires and enhances deep-seated neurological and biophysical reflexes. Your mind will be more inclined towards engaging with the person you are talking to. Even if it’s just a screen, you’ll be able to engage with a person in a regular conversation and you’ll receive your intake of social interaction. And if you’re too camera shy, you can always text your friends or even call them via phone. Use the technology of the 21st century as it was meant for in the first place; for genuine social interaction and connecting with one another despite the social distance. And while we’re on the subject, there’s also another social aspect that should be mentioned. You can also use this time to hang out with your family. I know it’s not the most glamorous or greatest option, but it’s definitely something that should not be taken for granted. Before the days of the pandemic, how many of us spent more than 2-3 hours with our parents or siblings? Most of us have usually been occupied by school both outside the house and inside when you take homework and studying into account. But how often do you get the chance to actually spend time with them? Like actually helping your mom prepare the meals for the day or helping your dad with his projects? Maybe taking the time to play with your siblings? You’ll find that by engaging with them in their personal lives, you’ll end up learning more about them then what you previously imagined. Maybe you’ll learn more about their pasts, what their hobbies are, their personal interests and talents. There’s so much you can learn and understand from them as you take the time to hang out with them and be a part of their daily schedules. Not to mention, you may never know if you’ll get the chance to do this with them. As the weeks carry on, there are more cases of COVID-19 becoming more rampant all over the world. And there’s already cases that have been brought up here in Fontana where people have been diagnosed, hospitalized and have even lost their lives to the virus. It’s a scary thought to think about and it’s important to think positively through this situation. But it’s also important to acknowledge that it’s always possible that you or your loved ones may fall victim to the virus without your knowledge. And it’s impossible to determine whether you have the virus in you or if you’re already showing strong signs. But you know the worst part about having COVID-19? Once you go through those hospital doors, you have to go alone. Can you imagine what it would be like if you tested positive for the virus and were forced into a hospital room? Where the only people you could speak or interact with would be the hospital staff who can only give a few short words about your diagnosis given their already busy schedules. Where you spend your days in a cramped room hooked up to an IV and close to a hospital bed as you are not allowed to go anywhere at all in fear of infecting others or worsening your own condition. If you’re lucky, you may have your phone with you to keep yourselves occupied with social media or to even inform your family of your current predicament. But the chances of even having a phone is less than likely given how strict the hospital’s policies are when it comes to personal belongings which can be contaminated meaning that it’s all the more harder to maintain contact with family and friends outside of the hospital. And now, can you imagine all of that happening to one of your friends or family members? Someone that you didn’t spend so much time with can end up in a situation where they may never see you again. All those times where you could have spent hanging out with them or helping them with their daily lives could be very well lost. And all you and they can do is just wait and hope that things get better. There’s one more, and crucial thing, that you can do during your spare time. It’s prayer. It’s perfectly understandable if you feel hopeless in this situation. We are living through a period of time that most people would describe as a potential apocalypse. We feel trapped in our own homes and can only rely on our phones and social media to help us through these times. We feel afraid that the virus could take away the lives of people we care about and we wouldn’t be able to save them or see them again. It’s scary. But that doesn’t mean we have to be completely helpless. This is where prayer comes in. Take that moment to yourself by putting away your phone or anything that distracts you. Find your center and connect yourself with God. Talk with him. Tell him how you feel about this situation. Whether you feel scared, nervous, frustrated, angry, any emotion you may have that you can’t tell anyone but him. He’ll understand. He’ll listen. And from there, you ask him for his guidance so that he may help you and your loved ones during these difficult times. Whether it be to have the answers to protect yourselves, or to give you comfort knowing that you’re still with your loved ones. You can even do personal reflections where you and God can take the time to analyze yourself. Maybe there’s some aspect about you that you want to improve. Or at the very least improve when the pandemic finally ends. And if you want, you can always start a prayer with your whole family so you can all be together and create a stronger spiritual connection towards God. Bring out the bible and implore your family to take a moment to read some of the daily verses. Take this passage from Acts 16:31-34 that focuses on the subject of praying with family.

“They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.” - Acts 16:31-34

From this passage, those that were in the jail gave their praises to the Lord and worshipped him with all their might. And it brought the miraculous feat of the jailer freeing them from their prison and accepting God into his life. We too are in our own jails albeit comfortable and with tons of privileges. But we have the power to promote change not only in ourselves but with the state of the world. By devoting some of our time to God, we can feel at peace knowing that he is watching over us and helping us overcome this pandemic. That we can take the time to enjoy our families and friends as best as we can compared to how we normally treat them in the days of yore.

By entrusting God, we can feel better about our situations and use our time for productive and creative purposes. Where we can focus on developing our own talents and figuring out who we are as individuals. Where we can try a variety of activities that we wouldn’t have imagined trying or even using this time to catch up on homework or personal projects. Where we can spend more time with our families and siblings so we can learn more about them than what we once thought. While we may be stuck in our houses for who knows how long, we can at least make the most of it by using our spare time.

How can you use your spare time for good during this pandemic? Discuss in the comments!