Voyage to the Happy Planet

Hello everyone, hope you're all well ...

I found the Happy Planet today !

Actually looks a bit like the Cranky Planet. I had to wait a couple of hours (actually logged off, eyelids were heavy and I lost that couple of hours!) until the sun came up in its day / night cycle and I don't think the Happy Planet had had any coffee yet.

I've been finding some more things as well but first ... Spotted this earlier :

Neat ! And good things to bear in mind during this isolation period. Let's see :

Keep communicating : oh yes. Definitely. Our own minds tend to be a trap which distort our perception of the world. It's good to break out off that trap, talk to other people. Listen to others, share in what they're going through. See if they have something that makes you chuckle. Pass on that thing that made you chuckle to brighten up someone else's day.

I'm probably lucky that I have a few excellent friends who I can keep that communication going with. Plus I was very lucky to find HeyChrissa's community which drew me in to the best communities in the online streaming world. You have to be a bit careful in which communities you stay in, avoid the toxic ones, I've also rapidly retreated from some which were just too frenetic. Others have areas which are incredibly busy, I don't even try to keep up with those.

Stay healthy, both in body and mind.

Stick to a routine - sometimes when I'm on leave or otherwise not in work for a while, I'll allow my time sense to steadily shift. I'll have like a 4am sleep to noon wake cycle. That's not really healthy. I'll sleep long on the weekends but I'm logging in for the work from home at around 7.30 to 7.45am every day. Plus it helps a lot that I'm not losing at least 90 minutes on the trip in and out of work at the moment.

Make Technology Work For You - and at the same time, don't let it work against you. Our ability to exploit technology to communicate has completely transformed over the past 10 years. Smart phones existed before but were rarer. We had slower email. Discord didn't exist and I wasn't on Twitter 10 years ago too. We are so much more connected via the virtual world. HOWEVER ! That means we're also far more connected to the virtual world. There's huge amounts of bad stuff out there. Keep to the good, cut out the bad. You don't need to search out the bad stuff and have it in your life.

Don't waste energy worrying about things outside your control. I can't control who is getting sick at the moment. I can only control the chances of me getting sick and through that, the chances of passing me being ill on to other people. That said, my mind goes to the numbers when I try and get to sleep. I am genuinely losing sleep due to the numbers being shown at the moment and from thoughts of where those numbers could go. If you're doing that as well, I applaud you. It's not a particularly healthy thought but it is an extremely human thought and if you are worried about the other people affected by this tragedy, that means you have a good heart.

Look for new opportunities to be creative. Don't worry about the "You have loads of new time, learn a new skill !". You may not have the aptitude to become a portrait artist or learn new languages. I don't and that's ok. It's ok for you too. Look at what you, yes you, can do to keep your mind busy and active. Me, I've been looking at seeing what I can get from Elite from the screenshots (more later) and from my own paltry art skills to turn daft ideas into things I hope make other people chuckle. I'm also looking to keep posting here, partly to reassure people reading this (you're awesome by the way) that I'm ok but also so that I'm writing and getting thoughts out of my head.

Accept that we must adapt to the new environment we are living in. I've come to terms with it, there's not actually that much change for me. But I am so definitely looking forward to having the freedom to idly wander around city centre shopping without thoughts of catching something. I want to watch cinema movies again. And I want to see friends again.

Embrace the fact that the future will be different. I've seen a few people saying that we mustn't go back to how things were before. I disagree. We must always remember. But we must not be marked by it. We must not be dominated by shadow, we should be able to find the path back to fully enjoying life and each other.

Don't worry be happy as the song said.

And I'll be looking forward to visiting new places too.

I can hear the dinner alarm going and it's already a bit late ! So I'll save the other screenshots for later and bid you a good night.

Stay safe, be well.