March 2020 was a nightmare none of us ever imagined Something like this would take place. Everything had to shut down; schools, offices, universities, parks, movie theatres, libraries, labs all of it.
Our lives took a hault and there was a big question mark in front of the whole world. What is this virus? And this bigger question mark was structured with many other such questions; what would happen next? How to prevent it? How to treat it? What are the medicines, precautions, when will it end, how will we be able to go back to our normal lives?
Well, we couldn’t go back to our normal lives even after a year as it was declared as a pandemic. Studies started immediately to learn it’s symptoms, diagnosis, treatments and the like.
And now in 2021, here we are accepting the ‘New Normal’ and ‘pandemic life’ has become an actual term.
But have you thought of this whole pandemic other than being a pandemic? More of a realization? Confusing, right?
Let me put it in simpler words. What did we realize passing through these times; facing all the difficulties? Our losses and gains? Let’s have a look at it.
What did we lose?
Many would give subjective answers to this. The youngsters would say playing or hanging out with friends, partying, movies, college and school. The working class will obviously say work. Some lost their jobs. The only bredearners of the family lost battles with COVID making it tough further for others.
Many lost their occupation, loved ones, freedom. Travellers miss going to places & exploring and adventurers miss trying new things. Foodies miss restaurants and delicious streetfood. Those introverts too miss going out sometimes at least.
Basically, we lost our freedom to go out and be ourselves! It feels like being caged up in our own homes. The house that we struggled so much, saved so much to buy it one day and now we don’t feel like staying in it.
And if we think globally, the world economy has deterioted. Companies are facing huge losses or winding up. World hunger has increased. Healthcare facilities are being questioned.
But what have we been loosing since years is acceptance of nature being superior to us and it’s significance. Not only this but what are the other things we learned through this pandemic.
What did we learn?
I’m sure so many of you must have realized tons of things regarding yourselves, surrounding, people around and the world.
But to name one thing, I would say significance or WORTH! Of our mother nature, the love and necessities she has to offer. We realized that co-existing with nature is necessary and we cannot overpower nature’s forces.
We have been taking our environment for granted lately. Nor that we were blindfolded for not being able to see the harm humans are causing to the environment.
Suddenly, we saw pollution levels drop when the whole world was locked in their houses and no industrial activities were taking place; we realized what we have been doing to our nature. And now, what after all this is over? Did we follow any challenge regarding protecting our environment along with the other social media challenges?
As the cases hiked and the need for oxygen and ventilators rose, we learnt that oxygen is a privilege and we have to just inhale for being alive. Now though, everyone has to arrange their own oxygen cylinders by hustling; we have realized the worth of trees.
New bonds with our people
The amount of time spent with family in lockdown has help us know better our people. We live under the same roof but our busy lives never gave us the chance to spend ample amount of time with our family members.
Pandemic forced a lot of people to sit and talk about not just COVID or money or gossips but the feelings we hold for each other. Showing love for family by performing our duties is different; and we have been doing it regularly but talking it out and understanding our family from new perspectives was something new we learnt in this world of digital connections.
We learnt to share the work load of household chores, which till now many thought that is kind of easy as you stay home you get so much time to relax. A big misunderstanding was solved, right?
The importance of hygiene
Have you ever heard of the proverb ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness?’
It was put forward in the 17th century, cleanliness meant both, purity and personal hygiene. This lockdown truly made us understand the meaning of this proverb.
A deadly virus that is fatal to our lives can be destroyed with the help of simple soap that we use every day! Of course sanitizers are bit expensive than the soaps but that is the substitute we are using for soap when outdoors.
We learnt that maintaining simple hygienic activities can keep us healthy and safe.
The essential workers along with the doctors, policemen; who help keep our surroundings clean were applauded.
We ourselves took a step forward and took matters in our hands to keep our houses clean, practice personal hygiene and appreciate our domestic helps too.
Health is wealth
Another old age proverb, ‘health is wealth’, found its meaning again.
Think of the pre-pandemic life; people were hustling to get to work, crack that deal, ace in their work to earn more money; buying property and car and getting that promotion was the priority.
But lockdown made us realize that all of that is not our number one priority but health. If you are healthy and functioning well, only then all of your wealth is worth otherwise, it’s nearly zero.
And the same goes with our mental health, it is equally important. A healthy mind means a healthy body.
Reality Check
Pandemic slapped our faces with the reality that you only need basic necessities to survive. Food, water, shelter, clothing, education, that’s all. And if you think, these are the only things we have been using in this pandemic.
Luxury sure is a reward of our hard work but didn’t you realize that its just some upgrades to the basic life. We can survive without the other luxury like big screens, air conditioners, private vehicles and the like.
What did we gain during this pandemic?
We are aware of the losses and realizations we got to know during this pandemic. Let’s see the brighter side of the lockdown period.
Locked in our homes the first thing we obviously gained is better relationships with our loved ones and ourselves.
We got to know our people better, form a new bond or nourish our existing ones with them. We learned self-love a new way.
A new hope rose and our perspectives towards handling tough situations changed. We found new definition to humanity as many came forward and helped the needy ones with everything and anything. Be it raising funds, food or providing shelters; humans helped humans and made humanity a super power.
Not just humans, people started loving animals and taking care of them. Being locked in 4 walls made humans realize that it is depressing and definitely injustice to lock up living being in a cage away from all the freedom and happiness.
Pollution levels dropped, global warming was reduced. The most polluted river Ganga got clean to some extent! The CO2 levels dropped by 32%.
Along with air and water pollution, noise pollution declined to some extent as well.
We finally saw mother earth heal after many many years.
Post pandemic life
Now the question is, will we continue to be the same as we were before lockdown after looking at this scenario?
Obviously not! Now that we know what cost we have to pay for our wrong doings to nature and earth, everyone will be and should be more loving towards her.
Healthcare facilities will be upgraded and made even better to face any other uncertainty like this, though we wish we never get to see anything like this ever.
People have realized that only chasing money is definitely not the way of living life to the fullest to upgrade life styles; life’s true meaning is living in the present moment and enjoying every bit to the fullest as you never know who and what you might lose in the coming future.
Health is and should be our number one priority. Everyone will take care of their physical and mental health. Healthy food, exercising, fun with our loved ones are the keys to a lively life.
When all this will be over, people will meet their loved ones who were distanced due pandemic. That hug or handshake which was long lost will be celebrated immensely. Smiles on everyone’s faces will be visible again as we would be mask free!
People are going to travel more to soak in the sun, air, soil, waves and happy people around all over again.
Visit Indianonly.in to explore the beautiful places in India
Hygiene and sanitization is going to be new normal. Efforts for sustainable environment will be taken.
Hope all of us understand that humans are not superior to nature and that co-existence with nature is the only way to survive. The R mantra Reduce-Reuse-Recycle will be practiced more than ever.
The Bottom line…
Life is uncertain, you never know what and how things will change next. It’s unfortunate that it took a pandemic for the human race to acknowledge and learn the very basics of life; future circumstances may or may not be worse but one thing is sure that everything is changing rapidly.
So live in the moment, celebrate life and always be aware of your surroundings. You learn a lot many things from it to take actions at the right and improve.
