| What’s Up With Me
As mentioned in the “Recommendations for You” section above, I want to share how I’m preparing to cope with the isolation of being inside and cut off from previous fun activities during the cold season. In previous cold seasons, I enjoyed parties and game nights with friends, going bowling and playing pool, and visiting theaters and museums. That’s not in the cards during the pandemic, due to the high risks involved with any indoor activities, even when wearing a mask.
So I worked on figuring out my needs and desires to develop an enjoyable solitary hobby. A fundamental driving force for me is creativity, more specifically creating something useful, for myself and ideally for others as well. Another fundamental driving force is productivity, meaning spending my time effectively in pursuit of my goals. So I wanted my hobby to satisfy those areas, while also being very different from my day job of providing expertise in risk management, strategic planning, and decision making.
After making a list of potential hobbies and
trying them out, I hit on just the thing: indoor gardening in my home office, growing mostly herbs as well as some purely decorative plants. It’s something that allows me to create something useful, as I get to enjoy the decorative plants in my office. It serves others as well, since my business partner and spouse Agnes Vishnevkin gets to eat the herbs along with me. And the risk is very small: sure, I killed a few plants early onward (well, more than a few), but I can always start new plants from seed.
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