It’s amazing the world of difference that a good couple of days can make. Don’t get me wrong, nothing spectacular or life-changing has happened – I just feel better about life.
Oh, listen to me, a twenty-something millennial who generally is all ‘woe is me’ about job prospects and the highly likely probability of still living at home at the age of thirty.
But, for the past few days, that feeling hasn’t been low-level pervading every thought that passes through my mind when I have a spare moment to stare blankly into space and think. And I can chalk this recent lack of that feeling down to one key difference – it has been sunny in England.
Before you scoff at the ridiculousness of such a blindingly obvious statement let me just say that, from Wednesday to Friday, I sensed a discernible difference at work – people were smiling as they entered the building, people had their heads held high wearing sunglasses instead of heads bowed to the floor because they’d just braved the chilling wind outside. The mood, the moral, the entire atmosphere was improved tenfold simply because it wasn’t raining and, the little wind there was was pleasantly warm. It wasn’t a heatwave by any stretch of the imagination, but it also wasn’t the bizarre hail and snow flurries we’ve been treated to in the month of April in the UK.
Everyone’s attitude, including my own, was a lot better off for such a simple thing.
With a little help from Spotify, I broke out summery playlists of more upbeat music and listened to that instead of my usual droning-into-the-background songs that I prefer to accompany my reading whilst I commute. (The Great British Breakfast and Feel Good Friday will both improve your mood and remind you of songs you’d forgotten existed.)
And, perhaps more importantly, I started to seriously consider the ever-intimidating question – What Now? – when I had a spare moment to stare blankly into space and think, except this time I did so without the usual generally grey and miserable attitude which ordinarily accompanies such thought processes. The long and short of it is that, having that low-level anxiety removed temporarily, I started to think past ‘settling’. To think past the voice in my head which shoots down any remotely moving-onward plan as soon as it enters my brain. To think that maybe What Now? could actually be an exciting and positive opportunity as well as an admittedly scary as hell question.
We’ll see how long it lasts. Cloud cover has meant outside has been greyer and colder today, but inside I am still working on job applications that would see me need to move across the country, something which, until this week, I wouldn’t have entertained past thinking derisively ‘If Only’. Like I said, it’s amazing the world of difference that a good couple of days can make.
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The Terror of Knowing 