This blog will not be about washing your hands and self-isolation. I believe in our intelligence and believe by now we have heard and are doing those things already. What I more want to do is write something that will be somewhat funny and hopeful. I also want to give some ideas of how creatives, small businesses and individuals can survive the coming months.
This might also just be an advert for the pandemic board game.
It’s not a paid advert, but that game is a real hoot.
Let’s get into it. My full-time job is currently in the travel industry. Now, a reality for those of us in that industry at the moment, is that we have no idea what impact national shutdowns and travel bans will have on business and how that will impact our jobs. To be honest with you it’s not looking good.
There are tons of other industries that are suffering at the moment. The service industry, creative industries, the beauty industry, to name a few. Fortunately the industries that keep us alive (i.e. farming, etc.) should be okay — at least from what we can tell. Nonetheless, we do have to think about how we can survive.
On a personal level, I have a wedding planned in the next few months. Just signed a lease on a flat and took my first big hit of debt. As you can imagine a worldwide pandemic is not exactly a comforting thought with those lined-up.
Weddings are getting postponed and cancelled. On top of that, there are murmurs in the travel industry of retrenchments happening already.
On Sunday Night, the South African government announced a national state of disaster and implemented a few things. Three key ones being:
- Encouraged social-isolation
- The travel ban
- Events over 100 people being outlawed.
*Update South Africa is on full-lockdown as of midnight on the 26th of March.
I mean how are we supposed to plan the revolution now? I guess it will have to be televised. If you get that joke, please email me.
Anyway, the truth is, we are in dire times. We need to self-isolate. Which means that a lot of people will be losing work. The problem is for most of us if we can’t work for two weeks to a month, we don’t know how we’ll pay our rent or feed ourselves. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for how to survive the coming weeks.
Stay home as much as physically possible.
You already know that though. Wash your hands, don’t panic buy, etc, etc, etc.
This is now forced by law – so no choice there.
Grow your audience.
On Saturday I was exhausted. Last week was tough and by Saturday I was physically broken, so I spent the day in bed watching Gotham. Ironically season 3 culminates in a virus spreading throughout the city.
Anyway, while I was lying there, I realised that is what a lot of people are going to be doing over the next few weeks. Spending more time online. Of course a lot of it will be worrying about COVID-19 but much of it will be looking for something else, whether that be series, reading, youtube videos, instagram, memes or blogs. Here is where you can genuinely help. If you’re a creative tap into that, understand your audience and provide for them.
If you want to support creatives, now is a great time to do so. Promote their work online, share their stories, interact with their social media. That way, when this ends, more people will know who they are and hopefully they will sell more tickets, get more listeners or have more people buying their art.
It might sound ridiculous, but this can genuinely help save careers.
Create.
For the next few weeks we won’t be able to leave home. For me personally, in isolation, I need to do things that will keep my mind alive. I still have work to do, so that helps. However, if I am not spending time with people something else that helps keep me alive is creating.
For that reason I will be creating videos, writing blogs and working on side projects. The reason for that is because it re-energizes me. If that will help you keep your sanity, don’t be afraid to do it.
Also, if you desperately need work, try freelance platforms like Upwork.
Delete twitter.
Do I need to explain this anymore?
Right now we all feel anxious. Going into a space where everyone is tweeting their anxieties and talking about how bad things can possibly get or will get. Just is not helpful.
There are other more reliable sources of information. Do I need to name them? I should name them right? Cool, I’ll name them:
- Any news publication.
- Also, this map.
I hear you, doesn’t this conflict with point two? Well, yes it does. If you absolutely need twitter, there is a compromise. I’ve deleted twitter off my phone and only post to twitter online but am trying to avoid reading tweets.
Exercise.
I haven’t been exercising, but you totally should. Try like Yoga, Pilates or push-ups. Something like that.
Laugh.
Let’s be honest. The world is terrifying right now. It’s hard to find things funny but we need to look for joy. It will help us not get sick (mentally and physically) and will help us enjoy life during tough times.
Read a damn book.
You never have time to read right? Well, now you do. So read a damn book.
Pray.
Ah, there it is. Here comes the preaching.
If we’re being completely truthful and if we take a long hard look at ourselves. One of the scariest things about COVID-19 is that we can’t control it. We are at the whims of the virus. Yes, we can stay home and that will help but at the end of the day we are not in control.
We cannot control if our industries tank or if we don’t get work. We cannot control anything at the moment.
In that case, I guess one of the only options is to turn to someone that might be in control. For me personally, prayer has taken me from being an anxious wreck a week ago where I couldn’t sleep because I felt like the world was ending. To today where I feel at peace and hopeful that the spread of COVID-19 will end and there will be a future.
I would not have the faith in the future that I have now if it were not for prayer. Things may get worse, and I am not ignorant to the realities of the world. But I have hope.
Those to me are ways we can survive the next few weeks and the fallout of that in the coming months.
The most important of those is hope. It is because of hope that we self-isolate, it is because of hope that we should still be growing our audiences, it is because of hope that we should create, it is because of hope that we should laugh, that we should pray.
It is hope that helps us remember that things can and will get better. If we do something, we hope it will help.
More than anything if you want to survive the apocalypse hold on to hope.
With that in mind what is going to be happening on Over Saturated? We will be posting as normal. Maybe even more than normal. The reason being, all of the above. We have new blogs from Lucian Van Wyk and more Outcome episodes on the way. Hopefully that will contribute to content you can enjoy in the coming weeks. Much of it won’t be COVID-19 related because other websites have you covered on that front.