How to Respond to a Less-than Ideal Season
BY SARAH ANNE HAYES
Sarah Anne Hayes is a believer, writer, and unabashed bibliophile. She spends her days running her small business, planning out her next adventure, belting out show tunes, and hanging out with her incredible fiancé. Sarah believes life is a gift meant to be celebrated, Tuesday morning should be as memorable as Saturday night, and nothing boosts your confidence like the perfect red lipstick.
Fall is my favorite season of the year.
Perhaps it’s cliche, but there are many reasons for this. I love the comfort and coziness. I love the fashion. I love the celebrations. I love the cooler weather. I love apple chai and pumpkin bread and changing leaves.
By simple nature of the fact that fall is my favorite season, it means the other three seasons are not my favorite. There are things I can appreciate about summer, spring, and even winter, but they will never compare to my love of fall.
Much like the seasons of the year, we go through seasons of life. Some we love and others… not so much.
Earlier this year, my husband and I transitioned into a new season when I went back to work full-time. Having run my own business for the three years prior and the entirety of our relationship, my new job brought about some major change in our life and schedule.
I won’t get into all the ins and outs of why we made the decision for me to go back to a traditional job, but suffice it to say, it is for a specific reason and a limited season. That reality has become a mantra of sorts that I’ve had to repeat to myself often because the transition has not been easy, logistically or emotionally.
Logistically, my schedule is a lot more full now, which means finding time for the things we care about and taking care of ourselves is more difficult.
Emotionally, it’s done a number on my contentment. Almost daily I vacillate between frustration with the current schedule, thus wishing the season away and berating myself for my lack of gratitude to even have a job, when so many are out of work.
Your situation is likely different from mine, but it’s safe to say this year hasn’t turned out like any of us hoped.
No matter who you are, where you live, and what your current life situation is, this isn’t an ideal season for any of us. As much as we’d like it gone, we have no control over when the pandemic will be a thing of the past. While many places are slowly opening back up, we have no control over when school, jobs, travel, gatherings, and more will truly return to normal again.
In less-than-ideal seasons, it’s practically effortless to focus on the bad, on all the ways this season isn’t what we want or hope. But there are a few things my new job and season have reminded me of that are better responses to a less-than-ideal season.
FIND THE GOOD
While our default posture is almost always to look for the bad in times like these, what would happen if you found the good instead?
With my new job, my schedule is a lot more full than it’s been in a while. All told, I spend about 10 ½ hours working or commuting every weekday, whereas before I was working 4-6 hours a day, 3-4 days a week, with no commute. (That’s a change from 12-24 hours to 54, for anyone who doesn’t feel like doing math.)
Those hours add up fast, and it would be so easy to complain about how I never have time anymore so I can never get anything done. Instead, I’m finding the good.
Like how my work hours help me keep a more consistent daily schedule. Or how my limited time requires me to be more intentional with the time I do have. Or even how the changes have made me grapple with my own limitations, beyond just the practical.
Whatever changes this year has brought about in your life that are less-than-ideal, what good can you find in them?
LOOK FOR THE LESSONS
Growing up in a family of lifelong learners, it’s pretty natural for me to look for lessons around just about every corner, and seasons of difficulty are no different.
While much of me would love for life to always be smooth sailing, I’ve learned challenging seasons in life often teach us some of the best lessons.
Between coronavirus and the drastic change with my new job (not to mention being newly married), I’ve learned a lot about myself over the last several months.
I’ve learned I still place a lot of my value in what I do and am able to accomplish in a given day. I’ve learned I have an extremely difficult time when I don’t feel like I’m contributing to a relationship in a tangible way. I’ve learned I still really struggle with letting others help me.
Your life is different from mine, which means your lessons probably are too, but if you look for them, I promise you’ll find them.
COUNT THE BLESSINGS
The first Sunday my husband and I went back to church when things began to reopen, I cried. We sang one of my favorite songs during worship and I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible blessing it is to actually gather as a church body and worship together.
There’s a lot of things we’ve had to go without over the last several months, a lot of things many of us took for granted.
Like being able to eat inside a restaurant, hug our friends, or smile at a stranger. In what felt like a moment, those things were stripped away from us in a way we never expected.
All of these seemingly small things are tremendous blessings we take for granted each day.
It is a blessing to hug our friends. It is a blessing to gather for a meal around a table. It is a blessing to sit next to a stranger on the bus. These and so many other things are blessings we didn’t even know we had, until we didn’t have them anymore.
So count the blessings. Count the ones you still have now and the ones that we pray will return one day.
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I have an idea of when my current work season will end, but I don’t know when the pandemic will be a thing of the past. I don’t know when this challenging season we’re all experiencing will be in our rearview mirror. But I do know there is good, there are lessons, and there are blessings right now, in the midst of it, if you just open your eyes to see.