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5 Ways To Find Joy And Love in the Coronavirus Era
Calm your anxiety by leaning into the things that make you happy
The Covid-19 pandemic, itself an unprecedented domestic crisis, has ignited a number of secondary crises. The difficulty in passing the economic stabilization package once again exposed how many legislators’ interests lie with corporations rather than people. The call for health care reform has taken on new urgency. Elected officials at all levels need to be held accountable for their lagging, anemic response to the pandemic; our education and childcare systems are ill-equipped to handle the countless children now forced to stay at home with parents. The gig economy, which once touted itself as a beacon of autonomy for so many workers, has been exposed as exploitive and dangerous, even as it searches for new ways to stay afloat. The long-term effects that social distancing will have on the economy and our overall financial stability is hard to put into numbers.
Yet, the thing that comes to mind for me is harder to quantify: the mental health impact of the pandemic. Fear and dread courses through news broadcasts and social feeds, often eclipsing stories of hope and optimism, or even progress against the disease. What may indeed be our “new normal” is something like we have never seen in my generation and will doutbless have an…
