Finding the joy in silver-linings during challenging times

By Ainsley Harris

The Covid-19 pandemic has been an incredibly challenging time for all of us, and introduced many big changes to our lives. For many this included the loss of jobs or major changes at work, homeschooling children, restrictions on our freedom, and learning to cope with not being physically close to friends and family.

Alert Level 1 and beyond will continue to bring new changes and challenges for many of us.

We think it’s important for us to support each other through this, and share kindness where we can.

Here at The Good Registry we’ve been looking back at our silver linings from lockdown, those little moments of joy in between the challenges.

For Sue, this was the warmth towards family in the workplace.

“One of the nice things about lockdown was the appearance of family members and pets in the background — or sometimes foreground — of online meetings. I’d like to think that we could keep this attitude of acceptance and warmth towards family in the workplace — whether that be in the home or office.”

For Tracey, a silver lining of lockdown was the opportunity to delve into her studies.

“I used lockdown to burrow into my study about adult literacy, and the impact — in New Zealand specifically — of colonisation and different world views on literacy and literacy teaching. I’m hoping to use what I learn to do a better job when I’m doing one-on-one literacy tutoring, once that gets underway again under Level 1.”

Tracey also looked at reducing her environmental impact during lockdown.

“I also used some of my quiet time in lockdown to practice making foods I usually buy, trying to reduce the amount of plastic and packaging I’m contributing to. Here are the dog biscuits that worked quite well...”

For Christine, her silver linings included seeing nature re-enter the city.

“I loved seeing nature come back into Wellington city during lockdown, enjoying the absence of people, pollution and noise — piwakawaka, kaka, and kereru in the city, and the biggest pod of dolphins I’d ever seen playing on the south coast, with no humans in or on the water to bother them. I also enjoyed using some of my extra time in the weekends and evenings to paint, including this picture of a huia with the backdrop of clear blue sky — inspired by the return of the birds. It may be too late to bring back the huia, but we can still protect and live in harmony with many of our other native species, and I hope this pause is a step in the right direction towards that.”

For Ainsley, she enjoyed being back at home with her family in Coromandel during a challenging university semester.

“I drove back home from Wellington and spent the lockdown with my family. It was so nice to have their support during my semester of online studying, and we’ve developed a really cool way of living together. One of my favourite things is that every night Mum and I go for a walk along the water as the sun sets, and we’ve been cooking really beautiful food too. My silver lining was one evening when Mum, Dad and I went fishing out on the rocks in Kuaotunu. It was so quiet, the sea was so serene, the sky was magic and we caught one beautiful snapper to share.”

We know it’s a challenging time, but we hope you can all find a moment to smile about. It’s so important that we remember to support each other through this, and above all, stay kind.

About The Good Registry

The Good Registry is a gift website where people can gift kindness instead of stuff.

Anyone from small kids to big businesses can show they care with donations to good causes instead of unnecessary gifts — using charitable gift cards or charitable registries:

• Create your own Good Registry for a special event and ask friends and family to donate to a charity you choose.
• Give Good Gift Cards instead of traditional gifts, to show people you are thinking about them, and enable them to donate to charities they care about.

We have 65 partner charities that our Good Sorts can choose to support.

You can hear from good kiwis and businesses who have used Good Registries and Good Gift Cards to give more simply, sustainably and kindly, on our inspirational Giving Wall.