Stay Safe, Stay Positive!

The COVID-19 outbreak has made a huge decision for the Government to implement the social distancing regulation in Jakarta and other regions across Indonesia. It has been a month since the city turns silent. Public places are closed, including malls and retail stores. Polices are guarding each and every area to make sure that every citizen with no important necessities to remain at home. People are screaming as many have no choice but to shut their store and even lose their jobs. This includes my parents. They are depressed as they can’t earn any money while they are constrained with the living expenses.

However, this situation makes me realize that there is more things to do than just complaining and stressed out in this vague situation. The negative thinking poised what might have been a good opportunity into a full room of pessimism. We need to stay positive!

Here are 3 things I do to stay positive during quarantine:

1. Limit ourself from stressing ourself

Seeing the news on the increasing number of people affected may be very scary. This might disrupt our minds and let us down. Instead, try to limit ourselves to the information you receive or hear while making sure that every information must come from a reliable source.

2. Create a positive environment

In order to forget those stressful and negative matters, I busy myself by spending more time learning new things. During this quarantine, I learn to bake and unexpectedly enjoy it very much ( I used to hate seeing my mom busy baking LOL). An achievement that I did is to finally be able to make a handmade pizza for my mom’s birthday instead of buying a cake! She was very touched and love the pizza so much. I also try my best to start my day with a cheerful tone and big smile that might help to spread the happy virus to other members of the house.

3. Always be grateful

A simple way that I do to liven up my positive energy is by tapping into gratitude. Although the world is under a great catastrophe, I am grateful that I am healthy and gather under one roof with my family. I am able to eat delicious homemade food three times a day. Continuing the grateful thoughts will strengthen your positive viewpoint even more and more.

These steps really help me to stay away from the worrying habit and stay positive. This positivity will definitely spread gradually to other like a virus. While finishing this blog also helps me to reflect on the positive side of my thinking pattern. I know it might be harder to do it in reality by when you practice a positive attitude on the small stuff, eventually you will be better at dealing with the big stuff too.

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Pritchard, E. (2020). 10 ways to turn stress into a positive. Retrieved 24 April 2020, from https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wellbeing/advice/a1148/how-to-turn-stress-into-positive/