If I am going to be honest, I wasn’t as sure about writing anything as inspiring or thought provoking as I would normally hope to do. It has been one of those weeks that I am sure many of you reading this will have experienced yourself during this lockdown, where I just felt like doing very little. I had little motivation whatsoever. So here I am, in my living room about to stream my consciousness… I am left with two thoughts: is losing one’s motivation during this time necessarily a terrible thing; and if you do lose your motivation, how do you get it back again?
I guess I will try to answer them. Throughout social media I have seen posts related to the idea of self-motivation and improvement during the coronavirus pandemic. But the interesting thing is that what appears are two seemingly contradictory messages. On the one hand, a number of posts preach about how it is okay to lose a sense of motivation and drive during these unprecedented times, and how we are allowed to feel this way. On the other hand, I have read posts that say to make use of this lockdown period, a period that we will never get again, and one where we can undergo great self-improvement. Whether it is learning a new skill or gaining new subject knowledge, these posts hold the idea that if we haven’t gone through this process of self-improvement where we can alleviate our own human capital, then this lockdown period has been a complete waste of our time.
Realistically, I think that both of these sentiments hold true. It is alright to take breaks. It is alright to not be productive for a few days. It is alright to spend some time doing nothing. But the issue arises when this happens for a prolonged period of time, trapped in a cycle of alternating between the TV remote and the PS4 controller. I would like to think that boys and teachers in the KES community haven’t completely fallen into this trap, but if you do think that you have found yourself in that situation, then this leads me onto the second question. How can you motivate yourself again?
I suppose the answer to this varies for different people and how they’re feeling. Sometimes it can be seeing what your friends have been doing, sometimes it can just be something from within, and as I found out earlier this morning, sometimes it can be a parent shouting and telling you to come downstairs. But either way, one can find a certain level of motivation. With mental health awareness week starting on 18 May, I think it’s important that we all know where to turn when we feel isolated, lacking motivation or simply want to have a friendly and supportive ear to listen. This newsletter is filled with hope – it is the essence of our school – and I hope it helps to motivate you too. I suppose that I’ll just end off with saying motivation is probably one of the most important qualities we all need to make sure we retain and even improve upon during this lockdown period, for however long it may last.
That’s all from me folks, have a good week!
