COVID-19. +ve
Social Media and the internet is already filled with more than enough conspiracy theories of it’s origin, even more to come for a long time. A theme that is likely to dominate most of the movies that will be made, once life comes back to normalcy.
A gloomy situation, made even more gloomier with people being forced to stay home for prolonged periods, sitting in front of televisions which keeps administering fatal doses of negativity, 24/7.
Read on, if you are someone who rather looks at the green shoots in the horizon from the present confines of your balconies. If you are longing to get out and step into a better future. If you, like me, want to be someone who sees the positive outcome of any difficult situation we go through…
This little virus has made us realize much more than what large universities, great philosophers and global organizations couldn’t.
Breathing planet, is what we see in such a short time of reduced human activity. Most of the countries would’ve not come together on normal days to even experiment for a couple of days to shut down and find the results. Most of the results of simulated models would have been constantly contested for it’s assumptions and error factors. Now, this is real. A forced experiment with promising results proving the scale of damage our speed of ‘growth’ is causing to the planet. Hope, we emerge with a totally different way of looking at ‘growth’ where the bottom-line and market value is not the only factor but happiness and eco-friendliness plays a big role.
- Nature’s reclaim, of it’s lost ground to one of it’s own creation (human) is very evident. Satisfying to see that it can be a lot quicker than what we thought it would take. There are a good amount of reported cases where wild animals are venturing into some of the busiest cities and towns locked out just for a few weeks to contain the spread of the virus.
We shall emerge with better models of town planning that accommodates cohabitation of other species and minimizes human-animals conflict.
- A reminder of ‘humility’. This should be a humbling realization for us to know that we are wrong if we assume that with nuclear power, rocket science and ever growing computing capabilities, we as a species are in full control of the planet. It just took a micro-organism to line us up. Nature is capable of more gory havoc.
We shall emerge with great respect and consciousness for balance of nature, that everything on the planet is NOT for human consumption.
- Domestic help: The absence of which in the current circumstances helps you understand the hardship that was going into a service that we afforded with a fraction of our income or in many cases for free, taken for granted.
We shall emerge with more empathy for the people who have been doing the dirty jobs for us all the while.
- Family time: We were fast heading towards an almost zero quality family time world, constantly running away from each other for work, school, vocational learning and social obligations. WFH, has forced us to care for each other. The people who call us when they have time on hand, the people we call when we now have time makes us realize the most important people in life we should be running around more, once we get out of this.
We shall emerge with more time, love and care for our loved ones
- Colleagues as extended families: From a formal, in some cases little informal work place environment which gives opportunity maybe once or twice a year for family get together. We are moving to a virtual world where family and pets in the background is something we get used to. An occasional peep in from a toddler, a cup of coffee delivered to desk by partner or a doggo hopping on to the couch nearby is a common sight that we are getting used to at work.
We shall emerge as a bigger family knowing and understanding our colleagues’ personal backdrop and situations deeper while not intruding too much in their personal space.
- Education (r)evolution: For a while now, I have been believing that formal traditional educational systems will soon start losing value. This pandemic firms up my belief even more as many of the schools are finding ways to continue lessons online.
We shall emerge with a more cost effective and efficient education system with learning at the center, not institutions.
- Essential (vs) non-essential: After the mad rush and shopping frenzy for our perceived essentials (#toiletpaper wars). As we sit through the lock down days in isolation with loaded reserves, we realize our consumption pattern in more detail. That we have been throwing money and time buying things which we hardly used.
We shall emerge with more prudence in our spending patterns which will indirectly help in reducing waste.
- Planning: As supporting systems and supplies start tapering down, we are forced to plan our days carefully. Think through our needs, limit our wants and plan for worst case scenarios. This is teaching a lot about management than what the comfortable campuses of B-schools can achieve.
We shall emerge with greater thoughtfulness in planning short term and long term of anything we will take up to do and being more responsible with it.
- Innovation: Scarcity is the mother of invention, also innovation. From something as simple as finding new recipes based on what is available in our shelves to a complex task of fixing a generator that was lying in the garage for ages, we suddenly have become more creative.
We shall emerge to carry this new found intelligence and apply in our daily lives as a habit to make the future world more live-able place.
- Long term investment: A few months into it now, the world has neither found a cure nor a vaccine to fight this so far. That leaves us with just couple of option, one’s cardio-pulmonary fitness, immunity levels and better common sense cleanliness habits. Sustained fitness is a long term investment. You need to invest time and efforts regularly over a long period of time to reap the benefits at a later point, when you need it more.
- Money cannot buy health: Money definitely can get you better medical care but not health. It is not worth to be lying in the most expensive hospital bed than running an ultra marathon, not bothering about health insurance premium. When you have good health, you don’t need the money for medical care.
We shall emerge invested more into preventive health than accumulating money which, if at all, can only help in repairing damages.
Be positive, for we shall emerge more responsible and disciplined out of this. Look at Corona a.k.a COVID-19 as the ‘comma’, the pause we all required but never realized the need of, to look back and learn.
Nicely written ma'am, only part I disagree is is we didn't require this comma / pause. It's forced imposed on us by nature or..
World is forced to pay very heavily. Sincerely hope we come out of this situation sooner than later. 🙏