These days, it’s easy to feel like the world’s ending.
Honestly, it’s felt a little bit like the end of the world ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re about two weeks shy of the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization officially declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, and those early days of shutdowns and restrictions were full of uncertainty and fear. We’re still dealing with COVID’s effects but, for better or worse, we’ve started adjusting to it being part of our daily lives.
But over the past two years, even as we’ve gotten used to a disease that has killed almost six million people, we’ve dealt with plenty of other catastrophic and tragic events which have only contributed to the feeling of impending doom from the seemingly fast-approaching apocalypse. From riots and protests to natural disasters to the most recent horrific attacks on Ukraine by Russia that have people talking about World War III — the world has been through a lot in a fairly short amount of time.
While many of us joke about the end of the world as a way to cope with the all-too-real anxieties, others are truly concerned about everything ending. I’ve seen lots of discussions online, some joking and some entirely serious and most somewhere in between, about how strange it is to keep going with our daily lives in the midst of everything.
“Having a job is weird because we’re in the middle of a major extinction event” is a post I’ve seen from multiple sources, to the point I’m not sure where it originated.
“The tension between escalating world events and still having to function as usual with everyday demands is a real one,” Brittney Moses posted on Twitter. “Taking mental breaks is understandable and often necessary when our mental health is exacerbated. Take care of yourself my friends.”
It is genuinely hard to take in all these huge, historical, life-changing events. Some of them, like COVID, have directly impacted and changed our daily lives. Others are a world away, but we see their effects and feel the frustration of only being able to do so much to help.
I agree with Brittney that it’s important to take breaks. There are times to just stop, put everything else aside, let yourself process, hug the people you love. In many ways one of the advantages of the last two years is they’ve given us perspective and clarity on what matters most. After all, if the world is ending, don’t we want to spend our time with the people who mean the most to us and doing the things we’ve always wanted to?
However, we’re also not at the point where we can just throw everything out the window. Especially for those of us who are privileged and blessed enough to not be in the hospital with COVID-19 or not be in a city that’s being bombed, we keep going to work, buying groceries, keeping our dentist appointments, closing our eyes to get some sleep. Sometimes this is frustrating, doing routine things when it feels like they shouldn’t matter anymore, or feeling guilty we can still do these things when others can’t. But, despite everything, life goes on.
This is a concept I’ve been hanging on to a lot over the past year especially after I heard the BTS song with that phrase as its title. The song was written about the COVID-19 pandemic and explores the concept that even though it felt like the world stopped, life still keeps going every day.
“Like an arrow in the blue sky, another day flying by, on my pillow, on my table, yeah, life goes on like this again,” the song says.
While keeping our routine can be frustrating, it’s ultimately a good thing coming from a place of hope. It shows we believe things will keep going. Nick Fury sums it up in an often-forgotten line from “The Avengers” that has become one of my favorite quotes:
“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”
Yes, many lives have been lost and others have been drastically changed forever. All of us have had to deal with a lot, and are still accepting the realities the world is facing. But the sun keeps rising and setting. Even amidst death and tragedy, life persists. We keep going. So as you wake up each morning, even though we don’t know what the future will hold, remember that life goes on.
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