Lockdown 4.0 - It’s Ok To Crave Instant Gratification In Uncertainty

Image via Splash News
By Harriet Ring

This time last year there was a sense of global camaraderie. We had one major phrase “We're All In This Together” and there was a real sense of getting it done and getting through the pandemic – together.

Fast forward one year and Melbourne is has found itself in the middle of lockdown 4.0. Although, this time the messaging isn't as united and so much of last year’s optimism seems to have disappeared.

And while last year I pinched my pennies – continuing to save for a bright future ahead that I so optimistically hoped for, now, all I feel like doing is spending those very pennies. Because with a new COVID-19 outbreak popping up on average every 12 days in Australia, I looking for anything to make myself feel better and quickly – especially if it’s in the form of shoes.

Can I afford it? No. But, I don’t care anymore because my therapist is fully booked and this is how I’ve conceded to deal with the now.

This fourth lockdown brought with it my 4th wave of COVID-induced depression. Now, the only thing that’s soothing that depression is scrolling marketplace for people’s half-used Charlotte Tilbury foundations and figuring out a way to get green Nike ‘Dunk Lows’.

In addition to my sporadic spending, I’ve also been aggressively over watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to look back at a simpler time, through an aspirational lens. Where all that mattered was a global event called The Dinner Party From Hell in which the real Alison Dubois (yes, the one the TV series Medium is based off) was vaping in one hand and martini in the other at a table giving prophecies, the “morally corrupt” Faye Resnick exposing people, a very strained Richard sisters dynamic, and the pièce de résistance Camille Grammar smirked at the head of a table knowing she had orchestrating chaos that Shakespeare wishes he could write. This is the world I want. Chaos on TV, not in my real life.

Take my advice, succumb to your sources of instant gratification because you deserve it. Watch that movie you’ve watched hundreds of times, binge a trashy reality TV show and even buy yourself something super trendy, or if you’re brave enough, something mysterious from Facebook Marketplace.

With vaccines still hard to access for anybody under 40, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve entered something of a stage of ‘coping culture’. Instead of thinking ‘when this is over..’ let’s take a moment to look after us right now, and what we need to simply just cope.

Instant gratification is okay; it’s actually good if it makes you feel better for a moment. So, good luck Melbourne and if anybody needs me I’ll be watching reality television and spending my savings and not taking on anything else at this current time.