Self preservation; lock down reflections

In this lock down a lot has happened and it may get us writing.

One of the hardest things I’ve learned and mastered over the past few months is self-preservation. I used to struggle with focusing on my own well-being, because I couldn’t differentiate between self-preservation and selfishness. I felt guilty about even wanting to withdraw from participating or writing about social ills facing our country and continent. It felt wrong. Self-serving. I wanted to help everyone everywhere, to write about every issue everywhere, to participate in every protest everywhere…

But as I grow older, I am beginning to value the importance of not being in a perpetual state of being active in everything. We take on so much that we don’t even realise when our backs are being broken. We fight so hard that we never pause to inspect our own battle wounds. We are afraid to want to prioritise ourselves because we were taught that we must always place everyone first, that to make ourselves a priority in our own lives is an act of selfishness.

And yet it’s so important that we take care of ourselves, that we create our own little paradises where we can go to find our own peace, even when the world around us may be bleeding . Because the truth is, we can’t change the world – we can only change the spaces we occupy. And self preservation is key as to whether we are called apathetic that is for another day perhaps year.