Silver Lining: Predicting A Positive Life After COVID-19
Being positive during the pandemic and thinking outside the box can help us with anxiety — and see a better life after these dark times.
The world is crazy right now.
It seems that the only news we ever see in the newspaper, websites, and tv is about coronavirus and there is nothing else happening on the whole planet (but I bet there is).
It is time to try to stay positive, hoping that the pandemic will go away. Besides doing our part — staying safe at home, taking care of people, and trying to support in any way we can — we can only wish that everything is coming back to normal soon and we will be better afterward.
During these hard times, it does not hurt to try to practice a little positivity.
At the same time that there is a lot of suffering, loneliness, and anxiety, we can focus on the things we are learning with the quarantine — yes, because even in the worse times, we humans are capable of learning, that’s the beauty of our brains and evolved society.
With that in mind, being a total Miss Brightside, here are my predictions for when we are free of the coronavirus:
We will change the way we work — for the better.
Until some months ago, for millions of professionals in the world, “work” meant to get up early, commute for at least half-hour to get to an office to meet their colleagues, then spending about eight or nine hours there, eating whatever is easier to find around or pack; then finally commuting back home, with little or no sunlight left.
Coronavirus forced us to find other ways to work. The most obvious is changing the in-the-office work for the home office. Changing locations is not the only thing that changed, though; people finally realized that the concept of how many hours you work is not related to how productive you are. Just because somebody used to spend eight hours in the office, doesn’t mean that this person is productive for all the 480 minutes. Easing the workday made companies and workers realize that people can benefit from a better work-life balance.
People also noticed that for most of the daily tasks and activities are not necessary to be in a traditional office. So maybe after the pandemic companies could keep the flexible workload for the benefit of their staff. Happier employees are productive and loyal employees, after all.
We will learn to make time in our busy lives.
If there are things that the self-isolation is teaching us they are that:
We are social animals — loneliness might be awful for us.
Many people are finding themselves even closer to their loved ones now in times of crisis. By using technology to engage in virtual connections with family and friends and even spending more time with the ones that live below the same roof.
Staying healthy is important and we should focus on that.
If a large part of the population once blamed the lack of time as an excuse to not exercise their bodies, now that pretext is gone; put together the facts that work journey could be now be based in productivity (balanced with remote work) and that we learned that we can work out at home, people should be more attentive for their health.
At some point, streaming is not enough.
Laying back in your favorite couch spot and chilling watching some Netflix, Prime or Hulu is great; But at some point, we realize it is not fulfilling and we could do better with our lives for some hours. Playing offline games with your family, reading a book, listening to podcasts or even work in a home improvement project are things that are coming to people’s lives now — and would be great if you could stay after these dark times.
Among other simple things in life, we might learn to appreciate and value what matters.
We will learn to support our local economy.
It might be because of the media coverage and appeals for people to support local business or simply because huge supermarkets are usually far from our homes, but the fact is that we are buying more from the small stores in our neighborhood than from large industry players.
This is something we should be doing with or without the pandemic. I’m not saying we should avoid big business — but could focus on sparing some bucks to buy locally. When we buy from local business we are actually making the money stay in your city or even in your neighborhood. And that’s great for everybody: for the local companies’ owners, for your region and for you, that will benefit from close-to-home solutions and usually have better and healthier options close to you.
We will learn to appreciate some alone time.
Yes, people are social. We need to talk, we need to see other people, we need to hug or to see somebody smiling; but at some point, we all can benefit from some alone time. Either for just relax listening to your favorite song, meditate or even for doing absolutely nothing — which can be great after a long, busy day — , we realized that it is ok to spend some time by ourselves.
And we might learn to use this alone time wisely — we may end up making time for studying and improving ourselves, practicing some self-knowledge or learning new skills. Didn’t you ever want to learn a new language or how to play that old guitar that has been standing in your closed forever? Now would be a great time to do that — and to learn to schedule some alone time for those things in the future.
Reinventing Ourselves
Of course, this is a crisis. Unfortunately, many people lost their jobs or are about to if nothing gets better soon. Although I fear for these workers, I also hope they could find a way of reinventing themselves. That local business owner could become a nation-level e-commerce company; that guy who hated his job before the coronavirus situation could take the leap to become a freelancer; that talented but out-of-time girl could reinvent herself as a great writer. Who knows?
It is time to think outside the box.
It is important to keep informed about the whole COVID-19 pandemic, but it is crucial to keep active and focus on things we can do to improve our lives now and in the future. It is time to be creative. It is time to use that spare time in our favor instead of letting yourself be depressed. It is a complicated situation, but as any other pandemic Earth ever faced, it will go away — and I can see a better future ahead.
