Lessons in the Time of Corona: Part II

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." 

One of the most obvious thoughts that we may observe during this pandemic is the mountain of time that we have on our hands. Yes, this does not mean that we have absolutely nothing to do since we still have priorities and activities to attend to, but the truth is that a lot of us spend a number of hours staring at walls, sleeping in, scratching our heads, or just slipping back to memories of the period before all this. We see a vast road ahead and narrow our eyes to seek things that appear exciting and interesting, the absence of which causes us to murmur in disappointment and resign ourselves to our beds, wondering whether we can pull a bear and hibernate through these gloomy times. 

There is a better way to cope. All it takes is some reflection to realise that one thing missing that we had during our ordinary lives then that we don't have now: Meaning. Our minds crave meaning for most things that we do, because what's the point of doing things without a purpose? Before the coronavirus, most of us derived a considerable amount of this meaning from external sources such as work or college whether we wanted to or not and a chunk of our day was consumed by this, leaving behind the remainder for our personal goals and leisure. This is what most of us should ideally attempt to replace. We need to be invested in a task or a number of tasks that we consider to be meaningful on a regular basis to achieve this. Being occupied could well be a panacea for overthinking, daydreaming, lack of self-worth, bouts of unexplained sadness, as well as grumbling to your mind to fall asleep. This is a lesson that I learnt, and I wish you well if you take this to heart. Laziness is acceptable. Lethargy is not. 

During the course of this year, I have been fully able to appreciate the difference between wants and needs. I'll certainly not be the first person to complain about the inability to get my hands on a lot of stuff that would have cheered me up in normal times. It's all gone poof, yes. But to my surprise, a few weeks into the pandemic made me realise that I could, in fact, live without them. It seems perfectly obvious, but one needs to go through circumstances such as these where we're denied of what we want to truly grasp this. This will also have a marked effect on our thoughts when we eventually do have the opportunity to acquire these. Are they necessary or have we fooled ourselves into thinking that they are? It's a question worth raising. The other end of this spectrum are filled with those aspects of life that we now understand are crucial for our state of mind and are currently struggling to live without. 

A number of us probably took the people around us and what they meant to us for granted. 

A number of us probably left behind things that we probably regret right now. 

A number of us were simply just ungrateful for the quality of life that we were able to afford. 

The most important thing about these lessons is that we learn from them and pay attention to those characters in our lives that make them worth living.