If there’s one thing I have to say about this whole situation, it’s that it has really caused my estimation of the value of hard work to depreciate. I hope that’s just a temporary standpoint for me, but just look at what happened, I’ve run track since I was in 6th grade, I competed at the varsity level since freshman year, and for the four months leading up to the official start of the season I trained everyday after school with my coaches to get ready for what was supposed to be the culmination of all that time spent and effort exerted. I was trying to break records, you know, I was tryna go to state, get more scholarship money. 

So after one week of the regular season having started, we hear that the season got cancelled for all of the foreseeable future. To work that hard and to have your ambitions and expectations set that high only to hear that everything is cancelled is a damaging thing. Like if you can’t trust the process what can you trust? It felt like here myself and many others were, doing the most to try to build a prosperous future and stuff, and then all of the sudden all of that is gonna be taken away. 

But with all the sadness and frustration that we’re feeling right now, there are a few things we need to realize. Even though being quarantined and confined to your house, not having sports seasons or musicals, music trips or prom is sad and a bad way of life compared to what we had before, and what we will surely have again, there are millions of people, who, regardless of whether the earth was healthy or in a pandemic, would still be, and are, suffering in ways many of us can’t even relate to. So maybe you have to stay in your house or your apartment, and you have to forego the activities or rituals that you usually rely on to keep you happy or sane, but at least you aren’t living your life under a tyrannical regime like in North Korea or Venezuela. Maybe you can’t see all of your friends or hang out with them for some weeks, but at least you are not subject to starvation like many in Yemen right now, or persecution, like many Muslims in China or Kashmir.