Hindsight is 2020
M, Coffee Shop Owner, East Point, Fl
So if there’s something I learned about myself in 2020, I guess there’s a few things actually. Resiliency is a trait that is very powerful and it’s something that some people are probably born with and it’s something that other people can learn and it takes effort to learn and I think that my readings in the past of Stoic philosophy helped a lot. You know there are things, like the Pandemic, that are outside of our control but there were things that we could do at home that were within our control. For example, getting vitamin D and getting exercise. We’re in Florida so you’re able to get outside and run. I took my workouts from the gym and took them outdoors and started eating better, doing better: things that I could control, I guess. For my mental sanity as well—so a lot of folks were just sitting on the couch glued to the TV—now don’t get me wrong, it was responsible to plugged in and pay attention to what’s going on and but at some point, you also have to unplug and take care of your mind and body. But resiliency is important and wasn’t something I had really thought about-although I did have a tragedy a few years ago which put me on a trajectory to come down here but it was resiliency was what got me through that: keeping a level head, being objective and seeing things the way they are and wasting energy on things that are outside of your control is not very beneficial for you or your family. At the time when this all took off, my son had just turned two. So I have a 2 year old at the house, my wife and I are at the house and with a lot of free time on our hands. We were supposed to start a business on February of 2020. We bought this building in 2019, my father-in-law and I took about 4 months to do the renovations and then almost to the weekend: our opening date versus when we thought, ok, this thing looks like a big deal and maybe we should not open and the lockdowns. Yeah, so we had a lot of free time on our hands and we couldn’t open the business obviously. But we just had to pivot: we started selling coffee online, I started dropping off coffee at people’s house—contactless delivery type of thing and I attribute all of that to resiliency and to keeping a level head and pushing forward, and a lot of things that you can’t control end up sorting themselves out, to a degree. To circle back to answer the question is I learned that you’ve got to get tested to see where you’re at, in terms of your resiliency and your family’s resiliency. If you have that strong family unit, if you can focus on the things you can control and focus on the positive things rather than give the negative things or anything that are outside of your control too much energy, then you’ll be alright. We are fortunate, depending on who you ask, you know, Florida was one of the first states to reopen. Businesses were able to reopen again and that’s a different conversation as to whether that’s ethical or not but we were fortunate in the sense that we were able to open our business, the beaches were opening up, other businesses were able to open so we were able to start our life here. I quit a good job in Atlanta in order to do this: I used to work in a hospital making really good money. I gave up all that to do this and my wife also gave up a good job being an accountant to do this. So we haven’t been affected as most other states. Over the last year, we’ve had these waves of the virus coming back and forth but we have a high vaccination rate, a lot of folks either had and recovered and have natural immunity. So we’re kind of in our own bubble here. which kinds of brings up point number two. Which is not really what I learned about myself but what I learned about my new environment because I’m coming from Georgia. This area is really unique-the forgotten coast-there’s a different pace here and you don’t recognize that until you look around and see what the rest of the country is doing and what my old friends and family were doing in Georgia as far as being locked down. Something else I learned is that idle time can be bad for everybody. Going back to what I was talking about earlier in terms of working out etc., initially we had a lot of free time and we were kind of freaking out so we were drinking all the time, to be perfectly frank! It’s 12 o’clock in the afternoon, we don’t have to work tomorrow, we don’t even know if we’re going to make it---we’re just going to drink beer! It was easy to do that and it was an unhealthy way to deal with things and unfortunately a lot of people kept doing that and fortunately we recognized it and decided, ok, we have got to take care of ourselves: in case we get hit or whatever, we should do everything to keep our immune systems strong. Idle time can get you into trouble: staying busy is probably the best thing for people both mentally and physically. We’re social creatures and we need to find value in things and I think sitting on the couch all day, and again, I’m not pointing fingers—I was guilty of this! But sitting on the couch and blaming, pointing fingers and watching the TV all day long is not value. At that point I was able to find value in delivering coffee to somebody’s front door. Roasting coffee, selling it online, things that were meaningful. The positivity can be infectious too. Sometimes that little cup of coffee in the morning, that sense of normalcy can kind of take you away from the craziness that’s going on around you.