Why we should be careful what we wish for.
What I liked about the lockdown was the ability to better plan my day. Not that this was easy, with the sheer number of tasks at hand that needed to be performed on a daily basis. Taking care of the kids, managing the household and keeping up with the day-job, does make for a rather packed schedule. What made being confined to our home better though, was that I had a lot of flexibility when I would do most of my things. It’s almost like having the gift of timing as it relates to financial markets, but I digress.
If you think about it, we never had more control over our daily lives than in the last two months of home internment. Sure, there was the potential zombie apocalypse going on outside of our bedroom walls, but that’s more something we read about on-line through our virtual window into the world. The Coronavirus has become this big, unquantifiable and omnipresent thing. It’s there, and hopefully somebody is dealing with it, but ultimately it doesn’t really affect my day-to-day, in my home, and my perfect little world. We become superbeings in an environment we can control. We choose when we work, when we eat and the knowledge that any food intake is going to take place in one of two, or possibly three locations within the boundaries of our walls, made the choice refreshingly easy.
Remember all the other meetings, travel or personal plans we used to have? Trying to organise a date, time and place to meet with other participants from different locations, or even worse from overseas, was akin to herding cats. Now we jump on Zoom, we use Microsoft Teams or even WhatsApp and guess what? Getting a hold of someone for a call is quite easy. After all, you can only say I am washing my hair so many times, when the other party knows you are stuck in one place with a limited amount of other engaging opportunities about. Everyone is reachable, everyone is available and everyone seems really happy to sit at home and have a chat, whilst the whole world is on a bit of pause and reset. It was actually amazingly productive and probably a glimpse into the future.
And then there are the kids, parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, relatives, all the people close to us. We were privy to a lot of time with our family in the last two months. Whatever issues, problems, or fear of absence we may have had, are all gone now. We either got along or sorted out whatever other problems we had, that used to be important. All that mattered now was getting through the next few weeks. It focuses the mind and creates a bond that will forever be there, all because of one thing and having gone through the Coronavirus crisis together. Remember that, as you now leave the structured confines of your self-isolation and wonder into a strange new world. As time passes by, you may actually begin to miss the way it used to be.