Valid but not correct

Two nights ago, I had a nightmare. 

I was standing nearby a gasoline station that I usually pass by on my way home. It was in the middle of the night, when two people came up to me with crazed looks in their faces and held me at gunpoint. 

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Even though it was just a dream, the sensations I felt were realistic. I was paralyzed with fear. My heart was throbbing hard enough that it made my chest hurt when I woke up. It was 2:30 AM in the morning, I was all covered in sweat and the shaky sensations as if I was about to be hacked off like one of the disposable pawns in thriller movies.

The worse part was the feeling that it had a high chance of happening any time soon. The neighborhood I was living in was shady and my window directly faces a walkway where next door renters often pass by. The possibility of being robbed, placed at gunpoint, and much worse scenarios dawned on me making it more difficult for me to go back to sleep.

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The dream haunted me throughout the rest of my day. If I had anxiety, it became worse after the nightmare I had. The isolation didn't help either. The city was under COVID-19 quarantine to keep people safe from the shared fates of those who contracted the virus. It didn't make people feel safe from their own thoughts though.

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Everyone was carrying their own mental baggage throughout the ordeal, doing what they can to keep themselves sane. People were paranoid and anxious of catching the virus, of infecting their loved ones with it, of being quarantined. It was doing things to people internally that was only imaginable in dystopian movies. People have gone hoarding, panic buying, discriminating foreigners, now front line health care workers even to the point of violence. People are airing their woes on social media against the president, the government, the media, basically everyone and everything apart from them, and they are all saying these things behind the safety of their keyboards and their phone screens. 

The feeling that the world was ending paralyzed me even more. To add to that, was the pressure to be productive during the quarantine period. 

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Social media has become toxic to an unbearable point for some people. I felt it especially with posts that made me feel like I wasn't making enough use of this long pause. I felt guilty for being paralyzed, for feeling depressed and anxious. It came to a point that I was constantly guilt-tripping myself for not exercising enough or not exercising at all (even though I have already injured myself several times due to my working out) or for not being productive enough (even though I didn't even have a concrete definition on what being productive meant). It came to a bad point where I decidedly not reach out to my family and friends because I honestly thought that whatever it was going on inside my thought box was my responsibility and my responsibility alone to fix. I also knew how contagious auras are, so I stepped back and isolated myself even more like the PUI I thought I was.

I looked back and I realized "The world is in a crisis. I am allowed to feel whatever I shitty feeling I am feeling at the moment." I gave myself that validity that I am supposed to be allowed to break down for being far away from my friends and family, or to worry for being on forced leave and have my salary cut or to feel depressed and anxious for not knowing what will happen to our economy after this crisis. Will I still be able to do the things I love? Will I still be able to save as much for my plans? Or will I be forced to go downhill with the majority?

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It was valid to feel the way I was feeling because of the cycle of fear, paralysis, depression, guilt-tripping, anxiety and shame that went on repeat inside my head. 

So what did I do next you ask? Did I eat the remaining barrel of junk food under my bed in hopes that the taste of junk food satiate all the junk inside my brain? Did I continue to paralyze myself further into oblivion, or did I start ranting through every comment section of every post I felt offended to? Did I prepare myself to be offended again on social media or prepare myself for a  possible rebuttal to my being offended?

One thing I learned after some ample time thinking was the concept that not every reaction that is valid, is correct. Say it with me:

NOT EVERY REACTION THAT IS VALID, IS CORRECT.

A reaction is valid when it is justifiable, when it makes sense. Here is a sample scenario: Kevin feels angry because the package didn't arrive on time. It was already running an hour late. Kevin's reaction of feeling angry is valid. For whatever reason the package didn't arrive on time, whether the delivery guy was stuck in traffic or had an emergency, or if the delivery guy simply forgot about the package, it didn't matter. Kevin's reaction to the package not arriving on time was a valid response.

Now Kevin is angry and is asking numerous questions in his head about where the package is, or if the package coming at all, or if the package being late is because the delivery guy did it on purpose. The delivery guy rings the doorbell and asks for Kevin. Kevin is at the door facing the delivery guy. He is still angry.

This is where correctness comes in. Now that the delivery guy is at Kevin's door step, what should Kevin do? Should Kevin violently punch the delivery guy in his face for delivering his package late? Should Kevin slam the door and vow to never have his packages delivered by the same company again? Should he curse and say vulgar words at the delivery guy and contact his manager to have the delivery guy fired? Or will he ask the delivery guy first why he was late in delivering the package and reflect the delivery guy's performance on his review?

Which reaction do you think would have the least damage, would cause the least heart attacks and possibly cause a beneficial mutual understanding to both parties? That is the correct response.

The thing about knowing what the correct response is, is it is very difficult when you also have to wrestle with the current heavily charged feelings you have at that moment. In most cases, these two are at war with each other, and the latter usually wins. By this time, especially in social media, everyone is a Kevin cursing and saying vulgar and hurtful words at the delivery guy.

I am that type of Kevin when I allow my feelings to cause me to eat that whole barrel of junk food and lose hope at the world. I am that type of Kevin when I allow it to rust my connection with my loved ones from afar. I am that type of Kevin when I prepare myself to get offended of anything and everything on social media and compromise my inner peace.

It's easy to mistake validity with correctness these days. This is one of the mistakes we have been making even before the corona virus outbreak, and this is way more contagious than the latter, yet no one bats an eye at it because we perceive it as normal.

But like the graffiti that went viral in Hong Kong after the lock down,

something needs to change.