3 minute read
Go after your objectives now
Coping with uncertainty
We don’t know how long this is going to last. It could be two weeks, six months, or even 18 months. And what you need to do is get yourself out of the waiting game.
Many people are just sitting there waiting and spending the day watching the news and panicking — and waiting for life to become normal again. And what we need to recognize is that it’s probably not going to happen for a while, so you need to find creative ways to pursue the things you’re passionate about.
Jaime Casap, ’93 MPA in public administration, is the chief education evangelist at Google. He evangelizes the potential of digitalization as an enabling capability in pursuit of promoting inquiry based learning models. He collaborates with school systems, educational organizations and leaders focused on building innovation into our education policies and practices.
Jarod Opperman/ASU
Make sure you’re putting together your to-do list and using this as an opportunity to focus on things that you’ve been wanting to learn and things that you’ve been wanting to do for some time.
— JAIME CASAP
Reflecting back on what we just did this past weekend, I realized that we were finding ways to exercise our passions while sticking to the social distancing guidelines.
My wife is a triathlete, and she trains hard for the event. She has had several events postponed or canceled but can ride her bike because that’s definitely a socially isolated activity. She’s able to run. The one thing that she doesn’t have an outlet for is swimming because the pools are closed, so we decided to go to one of Arizona’s lakes. She can be socially isolated in Canyon Lake and swim. I can take that opportunity to either shoot video or pictures and get my creative juices going. So we did that at Canyon Lake, and it was great. We felt better about doing that and self-isolating in nature. It is one of my favorite places in Arizona. It’s the first mountain range I fell in love with.
Replacing canceled events
Our outing was on a Saturday, and on the following Sunday, we were supposed to have a big party for families. My 5-year-old was disappointed because all of her friends were supposed to be here. They were all going to play in the backyard.
Instead of being down about it, what we did was turn the opportunity into a project that we’ve been talking about for a few days. We started a neighborhood book club. All the neighbors who were interested in participating, you can take a box, fill it with kids books, adult books, whatever kinds of books that you might want.
People can give them away or put their address in a book, so they get returned. So my daughter and I worked on the project of finding and collecting books. We gathered some of my books and some of her books. We put them in a box and put them out there.
It has been great to watch her take a disappointment and then turn that into a positive. Those are the things that can help your kids think through what’s happening.
Hopefully, there are two messages that you’ve pulled out of this column. First, you can’t just sit there and wait. Use this opportunity to focus on things that you’ve been wanting to work on for a long time. And the second thing is you still need to be you and find ways to do the things that you’re passionate about. My wife is going to drive out to the state park and swim as long as they are open. And, as I posted in the video above, my 5-year-old is going to find ways to engage in activities she’s curious about.
The best thing that we can do is not let this situation drastically impact us. Find ways to stay positive through all this.
