Being positive throughout Covid19 quarantine — 14 reasons why
From all the challenges flying around on the interweb, I decided to go for one that actually might help me keep my sanity — assuming I haven´t lost it long ago, which is a bold and slightly cocky assumption. Given that I was going to travel for a few months through Latin America and had to interrupt my trip due to Covid19 — that´s right if the title quarantine was not self-explanatory, this post is obviously about the covid19 pandemic. I assume there is no surprise here, do we even talk about other topics these days? — I decided to try keeping some positivity in the air to balance all the negative inputs from the last few days. Thus, since I must be 14 days isolated from the world (at least) after dealing with airports and the Latin no distancing way of living (no complaints here, just a fact!), I came up with the idea of writing every day something positive that might come from the pandemic. It´s going to be a stretch but fourteen good things must be pulled out from all this mess.
- Learning the importance of the basic habit of washing hands
It seems like a pretty basic routine that everyone should have been following for decades. But my empirical research, aka watching people leaving the toilet and avoiding washing their hands in a failed attempt to save water by spreading bacterias and whatnot, tells me it is still not a worldwide protocol. With Corona, we might learn that hygiene might save lives.
2. Increasing remote opportunities at old fashioned (or not) companies
Throughout these tough times that for most office people are not allowed to go to their workplace, most old fashioned companies are forced to allow employees to work from home or just lose money. Perhaps they will finally realize that work should be productivity-oriented and that trusting employees is a thing — if we can meet targets over depressive times, we might as well do it through happier times right?
3. Eye-opening situation for shallow society
These are the times that we miss the most who we love. Yet, due to an overly paced selfish society we slightly became, we sometimes forget the deep meaningful connections and live by the moment, jumping from people to people, sometimes even in a disrespectful and disconnected way — nothing against meeting new people and broaden horizons of course as long as the friendship turnover rate doesn´t keep increasing with no apparent reason. I hope after this is all over, we spend more time caring about people and showing love than feeding our selfish souls.
4. Rethinking animal care
Guess what brought once again a disease to the world. That´s right, animal exploitation. Although I am certainly pro-animal rights and slightly active in the field, I won´t go too in-depth in this one. There are way too many arguments in this regard that would be an essay per se. Read. Learn. Search scientific explanations. Change the habits that you can and need to change. Treat animals as you would treat someone you care about. I hope one of the killings from Covid19 will be a beneficial one for worldwide health: the killing of cruel and inhumane animal trade. If you have some sort of issue with search engines, I would suggest some keywords as “ unnatural animal environment and human diseases”, “human diseases and animal exploitation”, “meat consumption and health”. Good luck!
5. Dropping pollution levels
A lot of jokes were made in this regard with dolphins, dinosaurs and whatever extinct or non-extinct animals you can imagine swimming, walking, sightseeing and whatnot. But jokes aside, it´s been already stated that air pollution and CO2 emissions are decreasing — not a big surprise as we face an economic disruption with people staying home, factories and many businesses shut down or waiting to be back on track. It seems covid19 can affect one’s lungs, but the Earth is breathing much better these days.
6. “One hug a day keeps the doctor away”
I´ve been trying to implement this lemma in my life. Before the coronavirus struck. Now I am forced to have only virtual hugs. Affection is important. The feeling of touching someone´s skin can be similar to touch their souls and fulfill our hearts, for instance. It makes us feel in peace. Perhaps somehow calmer than beforehand. As all our problems can vanish and lay on someone´s arms for brief seconds. And personally, that feels good. If you don´t like hugging, no worries. Try to find your way to show affection. Try to open your heart to connections, vulnerabilities, and feelings. I believe the social distancing we have today will help us want to be closer to people around us, emotionally and physically. Perhaps we will value the power of affection differently.
7. Finding new hobbies or hidden talents
Times of covid19 mean that we try everything to help the time pass by. That probably means that we might try something new or reactivate an old passion lost in time or somewhere in our hectic lifestyle. Perhaps a new hobby? Perhaps a career change? We might become more open to trying and risking than beforehand.
8. Increasing online access to events
It goes a bit in line with some companies changing their culture to cope with the need for survival. I´ve never seen (or looked into) so many live streams, open exhibitions, seminars, sports classes, etc as nowadays. I don´t mean that I hope that we will stop meeting for all of these, hell no! But with today´s constant changing of environment, shifting addresses of residency and increasing access to information about the world that we can`t access all at the same time from a fixed spot, it is good to see some growth of live options in the interweb — and probably what can help a lot of businesses surviving during and after this madness.
9. Exploring what needs to be changed in life
Covid19 is bringing to all of us an unexpected change, the need to be confined to home to save lives. But it can also bring the changes we needed. Spending the day in between for walls alone makes our thoughts fly away — sometimes towards depression, life numbness, and some almost suicidal actions, but let´s ignore those for now! It can also help to put things in perspective and realize what matters. Perhaps it will help us gather the energy to make a life change turn in the future. Perhaps it will help us merely learning that the living room wall must be yellow instead of white. But it should help us think. It should help us stop and analyze. It should help us feel what we are missing. It should help us feel what we want the most. It should help us see more clearly what was blurry beforehand.
10. Divorces, babies and similar family restructuring
It sounds like a harsh statement. It is indeed a harsh statement. But the reality is that some families, couples, lovers, don´t usually spend enough time together to truly realize how they can cope with other people neither to genuinely celebrate love. For some people, it will be a realization that “it” was not meant to be and it is time for new chapters in life, following different paths. For others, it will be the reassurance that their path remains the same — and with so much time at home, I assume more babies can come up in 9 months for these lucky ones!
11. Rising of social enterprises
Covid19 shows us that we have been feeding a system that doesn´t fully work. We will face the survival of the fittest, economic changes worldwide and perhaps an increase in the unemployment rate once again. Some companies will struggle to survive, some families might have troubles to get supplies due to possible inflation and poverty will most likely increase. I hope in dynamic times like the ones we live, more social enterprises will rise — because we certainly need them.
12. Respecting the so-called low skilled workforce
Doctors and other health professionals have always been praised, so I won´t talk much about their importance these days — just a small note to applause their everyday work and risk-taking to help us throughout the pandemic. But other workers, often marginalized and underpaid in today´s society, also put their health at stake to bring so many basic needs to our homes and lives — and that also puts in perspective what we truly need. These days, without agriculture, supermarket workforce and other “low-skilled” jobs that help to keep the world moving and surviving, we would be in a much worse situation than we are.
13. Buying locally and become more sustainable
We are facing severe limitations when it comes to distances we can travel; what can be imported; and what should be prioritized. We shouldn´t move too far from home and we end up having to work on getting what we need from our local sphere. It will hopefully turn people to buy more locally and that, voluntary or involuntary, turns the decision more sustainable due to cutting down transportation emissions, decreasing exploitation of some habitats and increasing the support of the local economy.
14. TIME
Covid19 taught us how to stop. How to stop and to think. How to think about the whole time passed by at home. How to think about the whole time we have ahead of us outside our home. The sense of time has changed. Sometimes we feel days are unbearably long. Sometimes we feel the days were enough to do everything we had planned. In the end, when this is all over, we will hopefully learn that time is precious and we should do with it what we love the most.
