Coming into the year if you would have told me that I was going to spend nine months sitting in my living room and not getting on an airplane to go anywhere I would have told you that you were crazy. Prior to this year, it was not uncommon for me to be on an airplane 3 – 4 times a week. I’d fly halfway across the country in the morning for an hour-long meeting in the afternoon and then be back home at 10 PM only to get up for work again the next morning.
Now there were, and are, nice perks that come with that as our family travel was always based on airline miles, hotel and rental car points, and Chase points from credit card spend. However, throughout the year I have realized that dialing back the travel has a lot of benefits as well and there are five key reasons I am actually happy that we had a travel shutdown this year.
1) Frustration
Who doesn’t know the pain of sitting at an airport for hours on end waiting for the gate agents to provide truthful updates about the status of the flight? I get that they are limited in what they can say but after experiencing hundreds of delays over the years I tend to have a pretty good sense of what is actually going on at an airport. Afterall, I live in Chicago and the winters are hell on travelers. Delays because of ice, snow, or a polar vortex are practically guaranteed from the beginning of November through mid-March.
Of course, traveling in the summer is no picnic either as it isn’t uncommon for flights to be delayed for hours on end with thunderstorms occurring throughout the country. It is all made easier with airline club passes, expense accounts, and the ability to really work from anywhere as long as you can pick up a decent wifi signal.
However, at the end of day, we all just want to get to our final destination and this could not be more true when thinking about trying to get home. It was not uncommon for me and a work colleague or two to determine a few hours into a delay that this flight wasn’t going anywhere and we’d be better off just renting a car and driving the six to eight hours home just so we could sleep a few hours in our own beds and wake up to hug and kiss our kids in the morning.
While those drives were fun I certainly did not miss them in 2020 and I must say I am a lot less stressed out then I typically am this time of year.
2) More Casual Meetings
The old adage “business in the front, party in the back” took on a whole new meaning in 2020. Instead of referring to our brave mullet wearing brethren we all started to get more casual as it related to our work meetings.
Pre-pandemic my closet was filled with suits, button-down shirts, and 20 – 30 ties which I organized to ensure I did not wear the same tie while visiting the same client in any given year (yes I am a bit anal about things like that despite the fact that I am not all that fashionable). Flip forward to 2020 and I ditched the business attire – for the most part – and went straight to the shirt and short look. Occasionally, I’d throw on a suit coat or a sweater to spiffy the outfit up but for the most part, my suits have been collecting dust since mid-March and I am really not looking forward to putting them back on.
So to my clients who read this – let’s keep the polo shirt look for meetings. Okay? Thanks in advance!
3) Health
I have not been on a plane or slept in a hotel since Mid-March when my wife and I came back from a vacation in Jamaica. Since that time I also have not caught a cold or had a bought with the flu. Generally, I usually was pretty healthy and avoided any catastrophic illnesses but it wasn’t uncommon for a two or three colds to sneak in throughout the year. Maybe it is correlation and not causation but it certainly feels like the mask wearing outdoors, not shaking hands, washing hands religiously, etc. has played into limiting not just COVID but also the exchange of other viruses like the common cold and the flu.
In the US last year when the COVID outbreak was just heating up and people started social distancing and masking up the flu season came to an abrupt end as cases fell by 98% in the weeks that followed. Australia, which has already gone through its flu season in the pandemic, also witnessed a drop in those who contracted the flu in 2020 so there has to be something to this.
Perhaps this also warrants wearing a mask more often in a post-COVID world. Masks are already common in many Asian countries – so much so that some just wear them for fashion now and less for protection. It will be interesting to see what happens in the US when COVID passes and whether it will still look weird to see people out in public without a mask. It is still hard for me to watch TV and see people shaking hands, hugging it out, or being in a confined space without masks on. I wonder if my mind will change or will this way of living just become the norm. Long-term I also question what the impact of mask wearing will be on the evolution of viruses and our own immune systems? Will it make us more susceptible to COVID-like outbreaks if our immune systems are not used to fighting off the common cold?
4) Exercise
In high school I weighed over 200 pounds for much of my junior and senior years. I would always say that this was because I played football (not well mind you) and that I needed to maintain that bulk. However, once I started college I no longer had that excuse so I actually wound up shedding over 50 pounds and got down to around 150 pounds before I made the move to Chicago. After a few years of being on my own and eating & drinking way to much as I met new friends in the city I was quickly closing back in on the 200 pound mark. As I hit age 30 and got married I plateaued at 200 pounds again. It was a really shitty feeling but I was working a lot, studying for exams so again I excused myself for weight gain.
In the decade since – I turned 40 this year – I rediscovered running and once again took the weight off to a much more healthy 160 – 165 pound range that I tend to fluctuate in. However, with all of the business travel it was getting harder and harder to fit the exercise in and once again my weight started to creep up.
I can proudly say that because 2020 has limited travel so much that I have hit personal bests as it relates to the number of miles run and also my training times.
In 2020, I increased the number of times I worked out by 25% to 180 days, and also increased the mileage ran by almost 50% to 560 miles on the year so far (still a week left)!
Additionally, I am closing in on what became a goal of mine this year – to run a 7 minute mile pace for a 5K. I’ve never really been a runner but it always seemed like the most efficient exercise from a time standpoint to me. Historically my pace was around 8:30/mile but in 2020 I’ve been able to shave 45 seconds off of that pace to get my average pace down to 7:45/mile. I know the last 45 seconds will be the hardest but I got half way there in 2020 and look forward to shaving even more off in 2021 and getting to a point where that seven minute mark is nothing.
5) Newborn Son
As always I like to save the best for last and that is certainly the case with this post. My son was born in early June and I am so damn lucky that I’ve been able to see him every single day of his life so far.
When Emery was born in 2017 it was so hard going back on the road and being away from her for a few days. Every time I saw her she seemed to have grown an inch and gained a few pounds. I missed the first time she crawled, the first time she walked, the first time she said ‘Dada’ because I was on an airplane or in a hotel somewhere. That was so heartbreaking for me as I am sure it is for all working parents.
So as we close out of 2020 and move into 2021 I anticipate the first couple of quarters, perhaps even into the 3rd quarter of 2021, being much of the same until the vaccination works its way across the country. So until then, I will continue to count my blessings and enjoy spending time with my family, staying healthy, and chasing the ever-elusive seven-minute mile.