Sarah’s 2 Sense: A kindhearted advice column for confusing times

As we start a new year and continue through a global pandemic, we thought we’d launch a new advice column to help guide us all through these confusing times.  Meet ADDICTED’s new inhouse advice columnist Sarah Zaman.  Sarah is a queer, Muslim university student, studying Global Health, Political Science, and Human Geography.  She wanted to share her growing wisdom as a way to help people in little cheeky light-hearted ways.  For her inaugural column, Sarah gives her “two sense” on school + the pandemic, as we launch into a new year and willingness to work may be wavering.  Check back every month for more 2 Sense with Sarah, and feel free to send your own questions to info@weraddicted.com! 

Photo by bantersnaps on Unsplash

How do you suggest staying focused on school with all the uncertainty in the world right now? – MK, 20

I am just going to say it, everything sucks! It makes it difficult to garner motivation to do things that made sense in “the before time” (this is what my sisters and I refer to pre-pandemic life and I think it is quite fitting). Going to school, working, taking public transit; it can all feel like the worst thing ever.  Regardless, these tasks were things that came so easily less than a year ago  . But since the pandemic, with people’s safety and health at risk, everything shut down so quickly. Personally, it put a lot of things into perspective, just like when I reached the age of 13 and realized that I will never be a Kidz Bop Star. It was a sad day but I(kinda) adapted or did my best to do so…

In all seriousness, the pandemic has been a reminder that our entire lives had the ability to change within a span of 24 hours.It’s not surprising that the things that we spend so much time doing before seem almost… pointless. I could offer you some basic-ass advice on ways to increase your focus with mEdiTatIoN or provide you a tacky list of “Ten ways to enhance your performance”, but I am not going to do that because I think you have come to me in an effort to avoid those basic, unoriginal suggestions.

Instead, I will offer you this: you do not have to be focused all time. You’re allowed to not want to work, or lose the determination that you had at the beginning of the year…we are in the middle of a fucking PANDEMIC! I think that is a pretty valid excuse to not want to spend 5 hours in an online lecture learning about what old white men thought about ethics. Instead, do the little things that make you happy that are in no way associated with school. Bake a cake, do your skin-care routine, try to work out (even if you don’t actually because that shits hard – big props to you if you decide to do this). Once you have found ways to brighten your life a little with all the uncertainty that is happening in the world right now, the other things will fall into place. And if it doesn’t, you can always just try to become a Kidz Bop Star.

 

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Sarah Zaman

Sarah is a university student studying Global Health, Political Science, and Human Geography. As the in-house advice columnist at ADDICTED, Sarah offers her perspective on a wide range of topics, sharing her budding wisdom while maintaining a light-hearted, humorous tone to her advice. She is addicted to comedy, tarot card, and astronomy. Need advice? Send your queries to info@weraddicted.com for #sarahs2sense!