While many of us used our free time in 2020 to start new hobbies or get re-acquainted with old pastimes, we all seem a little busier in 2022. More people are back at work in the office, we’re rebuilding our social lives, and once again planning our weekend activities months ahead.
Unlike the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no longer plenty of idle time to meticulously feed our sourdough starters, keep track of our homemade kombucha brews, or manage the water moisture for the needy nerve plant we thought would keep us sane during those lengthy lockdowns we had to endure.
I can imagine some of you may still be baking fresh bread every week, brewing more than just kombucha, and your pandemic plants may be thriving. But even though I enjoyed doing all these things too, they didn’t replace the social interaction I’ve craved all this time.
I don’t need to go out every weekend by any means, but when I first moved into my house in January 2021, we were afraid to have people over in case the neighbours might judge us. We found out they don’t, and that they are actually fantastic people.
While I’ve appreciated the return of our social lives since then, the pandemic did teach me to appreciate solitude and to cherish my alone time.
I’m still attempting to finish the giant pile of books I’ve accumulated, but I’ve recently stumbled across a new little activity that I’ve noticed has quickly become very popular.
My mother-in-law was the first to ask me if I had played Wordle, and after my first attempt I was hooked to the daily ritual. She plays it every day with her morning coffee and I usually manage to squeeze in the guessing game before work in the morning.
For those of you who don’t know yet, Wordle is a free web-based word game where players have six attempts to guess a five-letter word, with feedback given for each correct letter guessed.
A new Wordle comes out every day, meaning you don’t waste hours playing it because you have to wait a whole day to play another round. It’s the perfect fad in 2022 to detox us from our earlier doom-scrolling, or other time-consuming practices.
It’s also a fun way to get competitive with family and friends to see how many guesses it took others to get the right word. And it might even expand your five-letter word vocabulary.
According to reports, the game’s developer, Josh Wardle, said he did everything that someone bent on creating a viral game would not do while creating Wordle. He even mentioned the fad of bread-baking in early 2020 and said he believes the fad of Wordle will last a little bit longer due it not being as labour intensive.
Of course, this new fad doesn’t mean I’m totally neglecting all the plants I’ve accumulated since 2020 and other than that nerve plant, I’m still taking good care of them!
