That one time, in Bosnia
Leila Chalk • April 1, 2020
Experiences from the Bosnian war and what they have taught me about coping with mass isolation
My husband has been asking me to write this post for weeks now. He has heard me have this same conversation with clients, colleagues, and friends. It goes a little bit like this:
"I know it seems impossible for the world to recover from what has happened - but I have seen it recover before." For what it is worth, some people are uniquely placed to tel you (to promise you) that society will grow from the things that COVID-19 and mass isolation has sprung upon us.
Let me take you back in time - in summer of 1991 the tension in Yugoslavia was palpable. I was six, and I could taste the anxiety in the air. It affected every adult, it transmitted to every child - an entire country having nightmares, and knowing that a collective grief was about to roll over us.
The crucible of war is a fast, destructive, horrifying fire. I won't go into it in this post. (I may never go into the details of it). Let it be said that those months of tensions became years of sorrow and heartbreak.
I did not go to primary school for most of my life in Bosnia.
By the winter of 1996, most of the aggression and tension was over. Poverty, homelessness, despair, were slowly ebbing from our community. In 1996 I did some year 6 schooling - at that point we were going six days a week to try and catch up. Life continued as before the war. Children learned how to ride bikes, families went to outings, we went to a concert, we went to museums, we sometimes went out to lunch. Mum went to work.
Society relied on aid and people lived from day to day - but they lived.
Eventually the institutions of society that we hold dear came back to normal. New businesses started up, old businesses re opened. People went to work, earned money, spent money, and communities thrived.
Fast forward to 2019. This December I flew to Europe for some client meetings. I took the time to also establish relationships with lawyers in the region so that we could collaborate on global matters. Bosnia, post war, has grown. It wasn't perfect.
So when you feel like the world will never recover, that borders will never re open. Take my word for it. This one time, in Bosnia, when I was a child, my entire world ended. My entire society collapsed. And then it picked itself up, dusted it self off, and went back to work.
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Earlier last month, over at Forty Four Degrees , we got all the lawyers together on Teams over a number of afternoons to just chat and create different LEGO masterpieces. It started, like anything in life, from a little inspiration and a little desperation. Talk of mindfulness is everywhere, the benefits are debated strongly, but it is one of those things that we can see working for ourselves - and it is never as obvious as right now, during lockdown. Melbourne lockdown feels like it is never ending. Everyone is tired, and that tiredness snowballs, so that each interaction in each day means that we are endlessly collecting little bit of sadness from each other. From our clients, and from the lawyers on the other side, and from our families and from the media. It multiplies and snowballs. One sleepless night, I thought it would be important to start the conversation about how mindfulness and positivity can also snowball. (I'm not talking about all the toxic positivity bullshit, but simply the attempt to connect and talk about the things that are working in keeping us sane). The next morning, I reached out to my team at work, I spoke to my friends, and I asked people to share one thing that had recently inspired them. My inspiration had come from my daughter, who would busily sit under my desk with her buckets of LEGO, finding calm in the daily task. That day, I also ordered boxes and boxes of LEGO to be delivered to each of my staff, and that is how our Brick mindfulness has begun. We hope all to see each other sooner rather than later, but at the latest, we are looking forward to our LEGO themed Christmas Party. If you have kids or adults in your life who are struggling, maybe journaling isn't their thing. Maybe yoga isn't their thing. But we keep trying, just in case little tiny bricks are their thing. The most exciting Harry Potter sets can be found here . Leila Chalk is a lawyer and founder of Forty Four Degrees , a boutique Melbourne law firm. She is the author of the Isolation Journal. *This blog post contains affiliate links.
Every lawyer has a different experience, but those of us who work for boutique practices and own our firms have an added layer of flexibility that makes work interesting. Sometimes that means that I am able to take off a morning for brunch, other times it means I am negotiating a dispute while dressed in a ballgown ready for a masquerade. I wanted to share this picture (and others) with other working mothers who may be considering starting their own business so that I can show them the real life examples of what the "working for yourself" lifestyle brings you. Some pictures are missing, of course. The ones where I was taking phone calls while breastfeeding, the ones where I was giving a presentation while eight months pregnant and in labour. Why are they missing? Because let us be honest here, my hair probably wasn't that great in them. And yes, there are moments that I have missed out on, but that is the reality of work (and not necessarily the reality of running your own business). I have been focusing recently on what it is that running the business means separately to what it means to work as a parent so that I can hunt down which moments are responsible for all my mothering guilt. The realisation: Working for myself gives me the freedom to offset the unfortunate reality of working as a mother. So, what are the major differences? Some people think that working for yourself is going to be more stressful because you care more. To that, I say, that everyone who works at my firm cares a lot about their work and their files. Yes, emotional boundaries are hard and finding ways to be off the clock is necessary. I am not sure I believe that those emotional boundaries are easier as an employee. Instead, they are either something you do, or something you do not do. What's more it is something you can learn to do. Is your journey going to be different? I think that really depends on what you actually find important and worthwhile, what you prioritise, and whether those priorities are things that bring you joy. I take great pleasure in the things that I do and the clients that I can help. When you are ready to take your business journey, check out my 10 minute business plan link over at Forty Four Degrees. Leila Chalk is the author of the Lost Chef, Kyoto with Kids, and the Isolation Journal. She runs Forty Four Degrees , a boutique Victorian law firm.