Bright Side of the Lockdown.

When this year started, no one had even the slightest clue that in the month of March we would witness the biggest lockdown the world has ever seen. On March 25, the Prime Minister of India announced that the country will have to be locked down to contain the spread of COVID-19, and almost everyone was confused about a lot of things.

When the lockdown began, a lot of things became clear about the idea behind enforcing such a move. A strange uncertainty came in the market, and it soon became clear that our economy is going to take a bad hit. Many experts are regularly analyzing the trends of economy and putting up their opinion to help the people, but one aspect of this lockdown still remains untouched. We have not paid adequate attention to some things this lockdown taught us. We are not aware of how we have developed personally, so, I am writing this article to remind you guys to take a moment to think about what good has already happened or is happening to us at this very moment.

The Foremost positive thing that I have developed is, “Patience”, and I somehow know that a lot of people along with I would have realized it lately. I am quite impatient when it comes to handling things or listening to people or carrying out chores I find useless, but locked inside a house 24/7 for three months, people changed in ways that they started noticing even the minutest detail and became aware of their surroundings. They started understanding people around them and became a good listener. These days, I do not speak unnecessarily, I do not get involved in conversations that make me angry, I listen to everyone with “Patience” and then put forth my opinion, and I conserve my energy to invest it on more productive things. I think I can say that I have become a little, “Patient.”

Moving on, there’s one thing most people won’t deny, and that is in the lockdown, we led a healthy life. We did not eat junk, if we did, it was mostly homemade, so, it doesn’t really matter. A lot of people lost couple of Kilograms and got success in achieving their fitness goals. As a result of weight-loss, we have already lowered the risk of developing several conditions including heart disease, diabetes mellitus, poor bone density, and some cancers. We also learned how technology can assist us in achieving our daily objectives. From HIIT to Mindfulness Meditation, technology is now guiding people to adopt the most ideal form of lifestyle.

Besides this, we got a lot of time to focus on personal development. A lot of people had to catch up with a lot of good things they planned they would do or started doing but left it because of some inevitable circumstances. I have seen people working on their public speaking skills. They would come up with innovative ideas such as making voiceovers on very interesting topics or making videos to review several products. We realized that we would not get this much of time again to work on ourselves and stepped out of our comfort zones to go ahead with the plan. Even if we developed a little, what matters here is that we stepped out of our comfort zones, and we tried, and realised that if need be, we would do this again.

Last on the list, but definitely not the least, we have developed a sense of innovation in ourselves. Engineers, doctors, businessmen, and people from other professions came forward with their ideas to help people in need. It is well said by someone that necessity begets invention, and it has now been proven true as a lot of services are being provided online, such as online education, online consultation etc. I was really happy to learn that Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and institute of virology has launched its first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine contender the trials of which has already started. From past few years a lot of experts are trying to explain that India needs to work on innovation, and now India knows that if it has to sustain in these difficult times, it has to come up with innovations that can serve the needs of all kinds of people. We are yet to witness how “Aatmnirbhar” our “Bharat” will become.

We still have a long way to go in this battle against the virus, but I am already feeling positive and optimistic. We need to stop complaining and start working towards our betterment and keep one thing in mind that is “this too shall pass”.