{"id":4836,"date":"2020-05-04T10:30:23","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T10:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/?p=4836"},"modified":"2020-05-04T10:30:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T10:30:23","slug":"if-quentin-quarantino-were-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/2020\/05\/if-quentin-quarantino-were-a-name","title":{"rendered":"If Quentin Quarantino Were A Name\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>In 2010, I was doing my NYSC in a place called Ukanafun, in Akwa Ibom. Initially, I got posted to the Local Government Secretariat where there was nothing to do, \u00a0so I volunteered to teach in a village called Ikot Oku Usung. There was barely any electricity or cellphone reception. In a place where you can only communicate in English to people who would rather speak Anang, you were as good as alone.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the end, I became really good at keeping my own company.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Whenever I get to go on leave, my colleagues ask, \u201cWhere are you going to go?\u201d My answer is always the same, \u201cNowhere.\u201d So for whatever length of time, I get to be off work, 80% of my time got spent indoors. Simply put, it\u2019s like I had been training for this quarantine all along.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So when I got the prompt for this month, I felt a little bit guilty. I did not have something that would fit into the \u2018making lemonade\u2019 narrative because I\u2019m having a blast. No need to dress up or undergo the punishment of combing my hair? That\u2019s awesome! It\u2019s like on a typical day; I need a compelling reason to leave my house \u2013 hunger, which is what would happen if I don\u2019t go to work. Now, I have a very compelling reason to sit my ass at home.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Isn\u2019t that bliss?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Not really. I mean, it\u2019s been okay for me and all, but we\u2019re talking about a global pandemic here. People are falling sick and dying out there in thousands and while we don\u2019t yet have a New York scale event on our hands (God forbid), it\u2019s still scary as heck. Even if I\u2019m not worried for myself, I\u2019ve got friends out there, family, colleagues, etc. Some of them have to risk their wellbeing daily because they work in essential services like healthcare. As much as I would like to enjoy my little island with a population of one, the reality is that I\u2019m not the 2020 version of Robinson Crusoe.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Whichever way we want to see it, the truth is that the Rona affects us all.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This means that I have to contend with a certain level of anxiety. Are my people okay? Are they safe? Do they have enough? That kind of stuff.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But in all of this, one benefit of being by yourself is that you have ample time for introspection. My friends say this is bad for me because I tend to overthink. Still, I tell them you can never really overthink, you can only really think badly (hello anxiety again). The thing is, when your thoughts dwell on the positive, you mostly end up in the territory of gratitude.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For instance, have we ever thought about how critical people in specific jobs are? The grocery store salesperson, petrol attendant, market women, garbage disposal guys, etc. Imagine life indoors without these guys supporting us with our daily or weekly needs?<\/div>\n<div>So I\u2019m thankful that I can still work (if not, for all the mouth I\u2019m making, I\u2019d probably have lost my mind). I\u2019m grateful my loved ones are mostly safe. I get constant joy that while my physical movement mainly consists of brief romantic walks to the fridge, I can still be of use at my job and people out there.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But enough about me. This has also been a difficult period for a lot of people I know, and I\u2019ve noticed how easy it is to fall into that trap where we let our struggles define us. Take it easy on yourself. Nobody knew we\u2019d be home for a month trying to get work done while still marshalling kids. Nobody knew they\u2019d have to postpone or cancel key life moments? My point is that we\u2019re all in uncharted territory and everyone is just doing the best they can so be kinder to yourself. This too, shall pass.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>PS: When are we going to talk about how working from home is a\u2026 [Redacted]. I would say more, but I love my job so\u2026. Bye!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2010, I was doing my NYSC in a place called Ukanafun, in Akwa Ibom. Initially, I got posted to the Local Government Secretariat where there was nothing to do, \u00a0so I volunteered to teach in a village called Ikot Oku Usung. There was barely any electricity or cellphone reception. In a place where you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4878,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions\/4878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}