By Jacob Buchan

“’Tho much is taken, much abides.” – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

In life, there are always ups and downs. This is true now, and will continue to be so – it’s the human condition. Though we share this cycle of highs and lows, we each cope with it uniquely. Whether we know it or not, we all have our own ways of dealing with hardship. In my home, I coined a joking phrase to invoke when the blues seem particularly heavy. I’d clear my throat, and with a whiff of indulgent sarcasm, say “we will yet prevail in these dark and trying times.” Perhaps a saying alone isn’t much help to anyone, but the pantomime drama and lighthearted tone go a long way in uplifting a mood with a little jesting. Though it started as a joke, the adage sadly seemed to become more and more appropriate in the thicket of uncertainty and alarm that was the COVID pandemic, and I was beginning to use it more seriously.

When the situation broke out, when the shutdowns started, and when the world seemed to turn upside-down, I felt relatively unperturbed. I knew that things would go back to normal, ultimately – and for my part, I’d keep grinding through the routine of school work and weekend-respites, albeit permanently at home. For the first few weeks, this was true – I was relaxed, productive, and certain in my belief that we’d all just get through this. It was going to end eventually.

But after two months of life in isolation, something changed. Suddenly, it wasn’t so simple. I still knew that we’d get through this, and COVID wouldn’t last forever – nothing does – but I didn’t totally feel it. I’d lost the courage of my convictions, and try as I might to shrug the feeling off, it lingered. This feeling grew until it reached its ugly zenith at the start of May.

When I’ve got to get stuff done, I like to work early in the morning; my mind is fresh, and the purposeful determination I get from being partly asleep allows me to maximize productivity. I readily anticipate the jolt of the early morning wake-up, the thunder of my heart pounding to the beat of the shrieking alarm, and the rush of adrenaline coursing through my veins as I awaken so suddenly and then work with rapid, resolute focus. So, one morning, it was a demoralizing shock as my alarm squawked and buzzed to find I didn’t want to get up out of bed. I didn’t feel angry, I didn’t feel sad, or upset, or depressed, or sick, I just felt flattened. Exhausted. Unwilling to move. For the first time in my life, I reached for my phone with a grimace, silenced it, and rejected the summons.

In the big picture, it was a small thing. But for me, it embodied the feelings of defeat that people were experiencing to such an extent that sociologists have dubbed the pandemic a moment of “collective trauma.” I’d gotten a glance at the mass despondency of the situation, and my week didn’t improve from there.

But in the weeks that followed that bitter moment, I realized that I had developed a new conviction, and it was getting me through the low points. My initial attitude towards the pandemic had been ignorant: “we’ll get through this, it will end eventually, so let’s just relax and gut it out.” Putting your faith in the distant future and “bigger picture” is no consolation, especially when the present is so real right now. It is not enough to say “oh, well, eventually things will change,” because that’s true for anything, but it is also unhealthy to live solely in the moment, lest it prevent you from seeing what’s down the road. So, to be both living in the present and looking at the future, I put words to my outlook: through thick and thin, success and failure, pandemic and peace, the most important thing is to keep moving forward.

Now, moving forward is not about unrelenting perseverance. It’s not about driving my way through tough times with military-grade grit and steely determination. It’s about acknowledgment, about understanding; everything has a time and place – the good and the bad – and most importantly, nothing lasts forever. Though in some ways that’s a sad thought, it is a matter of how you see it: change is constant, and it can’t always be bad – this too shall pass. At some point, things will turn for the better.

Knowing this, you’ve just got to keep moving forward. You learn from the past, experience the present – but you don’t get caught up in either. You keep moving forward. In the heat of any moment, any irritation, any failure, I do my best to adopt this mentality. Things will change, things will get better, so long as you let them and go with them. That famous proverb says that you can lose a battle but still win the war, and it’s right – you keep going, learn from your mistakes, and never lose your hope. In these dark and trying times, we will yet prevail.