Having to stay indoors with hardly anything to do for a little over a year was both an absolute nightmare and an oddly profound experience… The nightmare aspect involves all the obvious, pandemic-related reasons: Having to stay at home, the paranoia, seeing social media become a virtual obituary, the frustration with how people (and leaders, sadly) are handling the pandemic, and having to force ourselves to “pivot” our way forward with our careers – sometimes just to make ends meet.

As I’ve said, however, there are profound aspects in having to stay home this long… For me, it involves the much-needed time for introspection and re-evaluation. It allowed me to go on a journey to becoming braver in making decisions to prioritize things that are important to me and make me happy: Family, gratitude, faith, health, and being able to help people and causes I believe in.

Before people start crucifying me for being seemingly into toxic positivity, let me explain.