_p.png)
Chances are you are pretty unhappy with quarantine. Your whole life has new barriers, anxieties, and paranoia. Your life, one way or another, is completely change often in frustrating ways. You probably are longing for what you will do when life, businesses, parties, ane weeknds go back to normal.
But what does living in the past get us? We worshiped happiness, constantly chased it’s fleetingness from one thing to the next, from one experience to the next, but COVID-19 has put an end to that constant chase. Now we are standing, or sitting, still, and for many of us that’s the truly horrifying aspect of quarantine.
COVID-19 offers us something better than happiness if you are willing to find it, these some opportunities to gain something at we didn't have a chance to before the speed of life has been slowed down.
The End Of "A Better Life"
Your Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook feed now, probably has a lot less envy traps. No more pictures of people travelling, having crazy parties, or sitting at fancy resteraunts. Everyone on Instagram and Twitter are at home or else they risk themselves to inevitable backlash. One would think that that would make these social media platforms boring, but quite the opposite, they have never been more entertaining. People have come up with the wildest ways of passing the time, the best memes to share with their followers, and some really creative ways of releasing pent up energy or breaking up the monotony. And since we're all at home, FOMO has finally taken a back seat, and we can't say we're too upset about that.
Time to Think
The current moment also gives us more time to think about things. Even though you cannot travel to that museum you wanted, read an essay on that painting you wanted to see, you will end up understanding more than just window shopping art as you walk past each display without really digesting and understanding, and thus remembering each piece. This can be taken to other things in life as well, we saw so many things zoom past us without ever really remembering them. And now that the craziness has slowed down a little, we have time to really digest things.
Becoming More Mature
Maturity is linked to how long you can be alone with yourself, how much you value the present, and how little you depend on other people for emotional stability. Quarantine has been hard, but maybe you will learn more about yourself, and learn ways of dealing with yourself that do not depend on a constant stream of distractions, and who know, maybe after the lockdown, you'll find that you're more stable, and able to handle your life better.
The Creative Powers Of Boredom
Boredom can be a good thing, you might miss the lack of activities and social outings, but the less time you spend thinking about what you miss the more you can take advantage of the benefits of boredom. Being bored with what's happening now can open up new space, allowing you to see new possibilities for your life either now or after quarantine. It helps you take account of what’s important and how you will maximize that importance when you are able to. Psychologists call this tunnel vision, sometime when we are so focused on living our lives in one way, we fail to see opportunities and alternatives that were staring us in the face. Sometimes it requires a complete change in perspective to see a new, better way of living your life.
Boredom is also the spark for creativity. When you rigidly follow a routine, it drowns your creativity. So do not just panic, or try and chase away the boredom with any distraction, embrace it and be thankful for it. It could offer you new possibilities, new creative ideas, and new expressions you had previously been blind to in the speed of life before COVID-19.
Lacking Energy Vs Burnout
Many people complain about feeling tired and exhausted with the lack of new things in their lives as a result of quarantine and social distancing measures, but were we not burned out before this? Our constant attempts and struggle to preserve what we have, to not fail, the ambition of efficiency, going each day with the burden of commitments and sacrifices was leading us to near collapse, and now we can recuperate a bit.
More Distance, But More Connected
Have you found yourself talking to friends more, talking to family members you had only talked to when you were forced to? In the age of social distancing, we seek a connection more than ever. Many parents have complained about children being at home all the time, but just as many have been thankful for the chance to spend extended periods of time with their children, or loved ones. Rather than assert how great things have been in our lives, we are more readily vulnerable, knowing that our friends and family are going through the same struggle as us. That has made us closer than ever before.
No Illusions Of Better
Rather than wondering if we are missing out on anything, we know everyone is in the exact same place we are. No more FOMO while scrolling through your Instagram or Facebook feed. Now we are left with only what is needed. We have the basics, food, water, shelter, and the love of others, as well as a task or job that now really matters. No more do we get money for vacations, no more do we work for a promotion, and no more do we worry that we are not getting the best. We are simply thankful to be getting by, to have our health, a moment more perfect is no longer possible, all we are left is what we have. Now is the time of truly being thankful for our connections, more than we ever had been. Even when friends and families travelled, did we really connect with each other? Or were we too busy thinking of how perfect this memory could be?
So caught up in an ideal, they never took the time to be present and connect with themselves, their loved ones, and their faith in a real way. We no longer strive for perfection in COVID-19, now is the time to give thanks as we just get by.
Work for What You Need
We no longer work for more, we fight through our work with far more dedication and sense of purpose in what we are doing. We are not working for a vacation, or working to flush the money down the toilet at a restaurant. We are working to support a business threatened with collapse, we are working to provide some comfort to those suffering around the world, and we are working to maintain our households. Families around the world work to give their children an education, to keep their houses in order, to keep food on the table. We will do our jobs and tasks now heroically with pride in every day’s struggle, not by compulsion, not for excess, now we are doing what we need to do and that is cause for pride.
Faith
Are we practicing our faith as perfectly as we can? Are we making up for the guilt of living in excess? Are we really giving thanks for what we have, rather than wondering what we need to do more? Many Jews are lamenting the lack of family for Passover, and soon Christians and Muslims will feel the same for Easter and Ramadan, but maybe now we will celebrate these holidays as they were meant to. Your family all congregating and criticizing each other with whispers and judgey looks will not be a theme this year. We will be happy with what we can scrape together under the circumstances, maybe then we can reflect rather than compare, criticize, and consume.
A Simpler World
Many lament that the world before was less serious, more carefree (maybe for some), but now there is no arguing that our time is simpler. There is only one problem now, one issue to unpack, one thing that all news revolves around. The media could make us panic with headlines of disaster, but isn’t it a bit comforting that unlike in 2019, it’s not a million different things to panic about, each one demanding our time and attention and shaming us for not giving the appropriate care for before the next issue pops up?
A Shared Struggle
COVID-19 presents us with an unprecedented moment of collective unity as well, can you ever think of a time where the world was going through the same thing? When there was no enemy to demonize? Developing and developed countries, rich and poor, all races and nationalities are being effected one way or another. The news around the world speaks the same language now. The social media of all peoples is filled with familiar stories. While this unprecedented unity exists now, what about morning after the collective party? Will we just go back to normal? Or will something actually change in the way we relate to one another?
Less War
So far, COVID-19 has been a peace maker. Ceasefires have been announced in Yemen and Libya, they are shakey, but without the whole world battling each other in these countries, maybe these ceasefires will hold stronger than previous ones. Columbia has already seen a major peace agreement between the government and opposition militant group. Afghanistan is working on making its peace agreement last. As populations deal with a major outbreak, does it have time for more war? Do foreign nations have as much will to perpetuate conflicts when they are being ravaged by illness? Perhaps time will tell if COVID-19 was a peacemaker.
A Greener Planet
COVID-19 has been unequivocally a bringer of fresher, cleaner air. As industries around the world have shut down, so too have the clouds of smog that poisoned cities around China. In China alone 78,000 infants are alive due to cleaner air, if COVID-19 keeps a cap on industrial activity for a year it will mean a major reduction in the 12.6 million annual deaths from pollution complications.
We might be making a list of all the things we will do when we are out of quarantine but let us not think of our regrets for what we think we lost. Maybe the lesson to be learned is that we always can be thankful, even now. If we continue on this way of wishing things were different, maybe when COVID-19 passes we will find ourselves regretting the exit from quarantine, and be caught in a cycle of taking the present for granted and idealizing the past or future. Let’s find a way to make this quarantine mean something, to give us something, and lets hope that the world doesn’t go back exactly as it was, to what we called “normal” but maybe moves onto something better.
Comments