Tue, May 12, 2020
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Chandigarh Hub, India Originally from Mumbai, India
10 days after we went into lockdown mode in India, I received a message that said“If you don’t come out of this quarantine with either a new skill, a new side hustle, or new knowledge….you never lacked time, you lacked discipline”
My initial reaction to it was an enthusiastic “So true!” But then it marinated. And my enthusiasm was replaced with annoyance.
This message first arrived over Whatsapp, and it repeatedly entered my inbox from multiple well meaning people over the course of the next few days. I saw someone share it on Facebook, and I watched as it slowly pervaded my social media bubble.
Why? Why do we set these broad term expectations of an entire population of individuals leading entirely unique lives?
What about the single parent who juggles working from home and raising a child alone in this lockdown with no help? What about the person whose employer has piled them with a to-do list the height of the Empire State building? What about the young individuals who are simply trying to come to terms with this new reality that has been thrust onto them? What about the people struggling to stay mentally healthy as their lives come to a grinding halt and the world as they knew it is changed forever?
Do we ever stop and think that maybe this time can be used to do nothing at all? Because even when nothing is happening, something is happening.
Maybe it is time to rethink how we as a population worship at the altar of productivity.
As I read somewhere: “The great gift of such periods is that they invite us to question our certitudes, our givens. These seemingly sure foundations that have lulled us into complacency - for it is only by being jolted out of our complacencies, cultural or personal, that we ever reach beyond the horizon, toward new territories of truth, beauty, and flourishing.”