One night, as I was writing in my journal, I wrote: “But maybe the scale [of change] does not matter when you are learning to adapt to life changes, whether they be changes you initiated or those that seem to just happen to you. Maybe once you learn your capability to adapt and what your process of adaptation looks like, you become ready for every change passed your way.” I wrote this in response to my inner wonderings about the changes in life that I have experienced and how they have prepared me for the drastic changes during the time of Corona. During this time of uncertainty and isolation, I feel as though I have adapted relatively well, and I might credit some of this adaptation to the uncertainty and isolation that I have experienced through past life changes.

First, I would like to explain some of the changes that I experienced and how they influenced me to adapt. I think it is also important to acknowledge that these changes might seem inconsequential if compared to others, but pain and life trauma are not things that can easily be put on a

 

scale. I do not expect that my pain reduces that of others, and I continually remind myself that others’ pain does not belittle my own.

The first major change in my life happened when I was fourteen years old: my parents’ divorce. This was a strange transition into a life of a different structure of family, but it taught me that love can be unconditional, and family can be those you choose.

The next incredibly influential change in my life was the five months I spent in Germany as an exchange student. During that time, I felt true isolation and loneliness for the very first time, as I did not know the language, so it was harder to make connections. However, this change gave me the opportunity to learn how to enjoy my own company, to be inside my head and be content.

The next change is one that I think changed me the most, and taught me some of the most important lessons. When I was sixteen, my best friend Sarah died in a car crash. At this very young age, I was exposed to true tragedy, and for a very long time, I did not know how to adapt. It took a long time to learn how to adapt to this change, but three years later, I am able to say that I have learned so much from this experience. Her death changed my perspective on the importance of friendship and always telling

 

those you love just how much they mean to you. It taught me how to deal with letting go of the guilt and anger that accompany so many losses and disappointments in life. Most importantly, it taught me that we are never really quite sure how much time we will be given to live.

The last change prepared me the most for the uncertainty of living through the time of the Corona Virus. Due to some complications with my FAFSA, I was unsure that I would be able to attend college during my last semester of high school. Because attending college had been my own plan for my whole life, this uncertainty was incredibly jarring, but I adapted to the information and created an alternative plan. This time in my life prepared me for living with uncertainty, and it taught me the importance of learning to let go; we cannot always be in control.

Due to my many experiences with change and uncertainty, I am incredibly interested in the idea of adaptability. What kinds of changes make us adapt? What changes do we learn the most from, and what exactly do we learn? I began thinking about the very fortunate people to whom drastic change does not occur very often, and wondered how they might have reacted to the lifestyle changes brought about by the Corona Virus. One particular video that circulated towards the beginning of the

 

U.S.’s shut downs and warnings inspired me towards the route of questioning.

The video ( Spring breakers say coronavirus pandemic won't stop them from partying ) shows several college students as they explain the reasons they decided to go forth with their spring break trips to Florida. Several of the people talked about how long they had had their trips planned for and how disappointed they were that the bars and beaches were being shut down in lue of the CDC and U.S. government’s warnings and regulations regarding the virus. A couple of the people interviewed expressed their belief that the virus was not as serious as people were making it to be.

While I cannot say whether or not these students have dealt with severe disruptions to their lives, I can say that many people in the U.S. have been given the incredible opportunity to live relatively uninterrupted lives. Perhaps this has caused some sense of entitlement to having things work out the way one has planned, or a sense that one can always be in control of the transactions of their life. Even now, there have been protests and demonstrations against the social-distancing and shelter-in-place

 

regulations passed in order to flatten the curve of infections: Coronavirus lockdown protest: What's behind the US demonstrations? .

 

While this is just one news source that I wanted to provide for an overview of the situation, I encourage every reader to look into these protests. While I see the validity of their concerns about the local economies suffering the longer lock-downs are put in place, it seems close-minded to believe that these lock-downs are not necessary for the

health and well-being of the rest of the population. There are times in which we must make sacrifices in order to preserve life and reach an end of suffering sooner.

​

You Are Not Alone

 

Some of the common responses to this time that I have heard from friends, classmates, and family include some outlined by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: emotional changes such as “emotional dysregulation” and “numbing”; changes in sleeping schedules; and “dissociation” from ourselves and time in order to remove ourselves from stressful situations. For many, this time of social-distancing, uncertainty, and tragic loss of life is the first time in which they are experiencing trauma, trauma that has reached throughout the world and

 

disrupted everyone’s lives. It is understandable and normal to feel cut-off from others, to feel strange and unsure about the meanings of your life that seemed so clear before, to feel as though it is hard to hold onto who you were and what you did before everything seemed to fall apart. Although it is hard to experience these things, it is a part of traumatic change, and it can help you learn to recenter yourself, to find power that seems to have been taken away.

Finding new meanings means letting go of those that felt important before. This can mean many things for every person. For me, this has meant letting go of the routine I had and letting go of the things I felt were certain would happen. No matter how much I have learned from past experiences, it is hard to remind myself at times that nothing is certain, and when things change, it is better to swim horizontally with the waves rather than trying to force one’s way directly to shore. This requires patience and forgiveness of oneself, which is not something many people are taught in our society.

One thing that I have held onto during this time is the certainty of the seasons changing. I have held onto the certainty of nature, the certainty that the sun will set, and the leaves will grow back on the trees, and the sky

 

is always blue, even when hidden by the clouds. The Corona Virus has disrupted human life in ways that may not ever return to “normal”, but it has not caused the world to stop spinning.

​

Tragedy as an Exigence of Wisdom

 

The reason I wanted to write this paper and share the drastic changes that many people are experiencing is this: tragedy is an exigence for wisdom. Wisdom may be looked at as a process and a product of change. First, the definition of wisdom is always culturally constructed, and is typically thought to be strongly correlated with life experiences, specifically those that interrupted the normality of life (Linely, 604). This was particularly thought-provoking due to my questioning of “What can people learn from change?” Perhaps, given the right circumstances and drive, wisdom is something people may gain through life disruptions and changes.

There are three “dimensions of wisdom” as explained by Linely: “Recognition and Management of Uncertainty,” “Integration of Affect and Cognition,” and “Recognition and Acceptance of Human Limitation.” First, a wise person “acknowledges the constant nature of change, and so is able to develop with change rather than working against it” (Linely, 605). This is to say that once one is able to understand the inevitability of change, they are able to gracefully accept and work through changes that they experience.

​

Next, a wise person can “recognize and own their somatic sensations, but are not at the mercy of them” (Linely, 605). A wise person is able to cognitively identify the feelings they are experiencing, understand why they are feeling them, and allow themselves the time and space to work through them. Linely describes this process as one of “connected detachment”; one is intune with themself and their emotions, but does not fall victim to reliving past trauma (605).

​

Last, a wise person “acknowledges how much he or she does not know” and eventually reaches “the recognition and acceptance of the ultimate human limitation: the finitude of life” (Linely, 605). Instead of being stressed or feeling hopeless about the limitations of human capabilities, a wise person is able to acknowledge when they are powerful and when they are powerless, without fear that this powerlessness will diminish their worth. During a time of great uncertainty and human powerlessness, we do not have to be afraid. All we must do is live and try to create meaning through what we now know and experience; as Linely explains, “allocation

 

of meaning allows a state of comprehension to be returned in the place of existential chaos” (607). Just as growth is not linear, wisdom is “fluid and interactive” and can be gained through traumatic change while also be a tool through which traumatic change is handled (Linely, 607).

This time has been incredibly hard for many people, especially those who have not experienced trauma and disruption in their lives to this degree. My hope is that they will learn to let go of the expectations and certainties of the time before without feeling as though they are letting go of their worth, so that they can begin to heal and learn and come out of this time wiser than before.

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Brito, Christopher. “Spring breakers say coronavirus pandemic won’t stop them from partying.” CBS NewsI, 25 Mar., 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spring-break-party-coronavirus-pand emic-miami-beaches/, Accessed 16 Apr., 2020.

​

Linely, P. A. “Positive Adaptation to Trauma: Wisdom as Both a Process and Outcome.” Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 16, No. 6, 2003, pg. 601-610.

​

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services. Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series 57. HHS Publication No. (SMA) 13-4801. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2014.