Positives From COVID 19 By Sanjelyn

COVID 19 in the year 2020 made it to history rendering the most days of the year unproductive and difficult for the entire population of the world. To be agreed upon? Or disagreed? Or maybe it is safe to both?

A short introduction about COVID 19 for those reading it after a few years! It is a virus that created a pandemic situation in every nook and corner of the world killing over 1.22 million people. Now have I left you wondering how it has helped living beings? You will find the answers to your questions shortly. Until 2020 we were all running a rat race for money, wealth, comfort, luxury and most people even for survival among the fortunate others.  And when more money offered, the more we followed the vicious circle guilt free. Throughout this race, we forgot, denied Mother Earth and humanity.

Every story needs a twist, isn’t it? Unfortunately this too had a twist. It is called COVID 19. It ruined the livelihood of millions in different forms: job loss, loss of financial independence and most importantly mental & emotional health wreck. Not to deny, the only reason people survived was their family and some good people around them.

Humans learn to value humans and other beings when put in a stressful situation. And that is exactly what had happened from March to December 2020. Despite the job losses, good words and deeds from people helped others survive through the situation. The situation had been different for all age groups as expected.

School kids lost their productive friends time and outdoor sport time but learnt that friendship is not limited to proximity, rather concern and regard for each other. Well for college students, it was their future analysis situation. We would all agree that most of us gave in to our parents’ choices when our career was the question. The gen-Z’s got their big opportunity to decide their future and also earn money through paid online internships. “Hard to deny!” says every 90’s kid.  The professionals or the office goers were hit really hard. Job losses, pay cuts and overtime became the accepted trend for 10 months and surprisingly, overtime was voted the best option among the three.

Zoom app, which was alien to most commoners, became a way of life for communication and learning. And courses on Udemy, Coursera and other online education companies shot to fame within no time. This simply made evident education hardly needs any physical presence. I should say that everyone diverted their negative thoughts into learning new skills and subjects. In a way, they suppressed their actual problems and translated them into learning. I am sure; if not for COVID 19 we would never have learnt that art.

Talking about the bigger positives of the pandemic, humans learnt to value relationships though some long distance relationships couldn’t cope. Family time became most valued, health even more valued and respect & concern for fellow beings genuine. While some still went on to assess if their future is secure, others took time to understand themselves and enjoyed self-time. The beauty of self-time is so unexplainable that those precious moments bring out the unexplored personality in you. We realized how the vicious race for materialistic life made our lives an absolute lie.

The perfect ending to this would be ‘We become what we think, and make the best of the situation’. This is the biggest take away from this life changing pandemic. Hats off to all the survivors! To others struggling, a miracle awaits you! And for all, be considerate and be there for your loved ones. 

Add your storires in the comment section. We would love to hear from you.

 

Sanjelyn
Project Coordinator
  IIT Madras