How will we change?

The 2020 pandemic has forced millions around the world to remain at home, safe from the potential harm of catching the virus. For many, this has not come by choice. Uprooting our “normal” school and office routines and planting ourselves in some corner of our homes with as few distractions as possible. Unfortunately, for a greater number of the population, who probably don’t have access to the luxury of the internet, are forced to abandon the work which did exist for them. For those particular individuals, my prayers and warm wishes go out to them along with all the individuals and organizations working tirelessly to minimize the financial impact of the pandemic on those households.

But coming back to those working from home. Times have been rough. Social distancing has taken a psychological toll on us as well. For many, anxiety has kicked. A month of quarantine has gone by in Pakistan. The first few weeks were all about navigating Zoom and being more efficient with emails. The second half of the month may have gone by in a slump where reality hit us all. And to top it off: Ramadan is right around the corner. Allow me to express some concern here.

In a months time of quarantine, businesses and their employees have had to adjust to a new way of working and most importantly a new way of thinking. One which was easier for some, but difficult for many. Small businesses, schools and corporations have tried their best to ensure reductions in salaries are pushed off to as far as possible and redundancies remain as an option of last resort. But how are we as individuals, regardless of our position or employment, ready to change? How are we as people, seeking opportunities to change the way we work, the way we consume, the way we think and the way we live our lives? A buzz word thrown around quite often prior to the Coronavirus outbreak was “sustainability”. So I ask the rhetorical question again: how are we looking to change?

A global lockdown was a perfect time for the world to reset and undo much of the damage we had done to our ecosystem and economy. Heightened levels of growth and as a result heightened levels of externalities. This is also an opportunity for us to rethink our work patterns and reset those too. In times of crisis, communities are known to unite together and prosper collectively. Lessons are learned, as are new skills and traits. Innovation takes place and communication is at its peak. But what’s worth noting here is that all the learnings, innovation and communication are not seamless. They are not instant and they are definitely not pretty either. They are iterative and sloppy. But they refine over time.

Social media is booming with messages pertaining to “productivity” being over-glorified. And that’s not what I’m getting at. What I am getting at is the knowledge we can all absorb, by spending time by ourselves. Not letting our idle minds take over us, but rather, allowing ourselves to flip our perspectives to learn and share more. Grow more. As humans, we all have a level of intellect which forces us to be curious about a variety of topics and disciplines. Lets ask ourselves again; when a lockdown period has slowed us down and is followed by the month of Ramadan, which inevitably slows the nation down, how are we to change? Are we to explore areas we never had the opportunity to explore before? Are we to create that which we never had the time to create before? Are we to read that which we never were able to make the time to read before? Or are we to continue pondering upon our day to day, waiting for our schools and offices to reopen so we can escape again?

Would love to know.

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