Thoughts on ‘Normalising the New Normal’

 

2020 as you can see so far has been nothing but a pile of bad news, hitting us one after the other. The pandemic began in December 2019, and the lockdown in mid-March. It all started five months ago and is likely to stay the same way. We had several phases during such times: the whipped coffee phase, the online Ludo phase, and the ‘baking random desserts and DIY phase’. A lot of those phases have long passed, and we definitely are in a much better place than we used to be before, but COVID is very much around. We continue to live each day in fear of what may happen next. A single cough or sniff can drive people crazy.

But since I’m here to help you deal with stuff, let’s deal with this one together too! Since we are way past phases like dalgona coffee and randomly painting bedroom walls, it’s time to normalise this whole thing. So now the question is, how do you turn this time around, and use it to leverage positivity? How do you start ‘normalising the new normal’?

The first step is acceptance. Accept that this is your state right now. That you are here now, in 2020, dealing with this particular event in your life. Get out of the stage of denial. We all used to think that Mumbai especially had always been so safe,  but guess, which Indian city is most gravely affected now? You’ve got your answer. The solution is not to know these statistics and fret on it. The solution is to be grateful for your current situation and use it to extract maximum positivity. Here are a few suggestions on how you can leverage the lockdown by making the most of it:

1. Introspect: Take some time and introspect your personality in general: what do you want in life, what are your short term and long term goals? Carefully analyse, evaluate and see where you are at life and where do you want to be. You will soon know how to craft a plan that will help you reach those goals.

2. What is it that you want? Apart from evaluating your short and long term goals, it would help if you studied your strengths and weaknesses too. Have you been wanting to learn belly dancing, or learning how to cook Spanish paella for years? Well now is the time to consider that decision.

3. Hustle: Lockdown is all about glow ups. It’s about challenging yourself and making the best of your capabilities. Been a trusted general physician for years, but always had a fancy for writing poetry? Or maybe you are a writer, but a page of your notebook is full of random, abstract, illustrations, towards which you are deeply passionate? Who says that you can’t do both? Now is the time to. Fancy a side hustle? Work on it today. Since you’re saving hours and hours of your day in commuting halfway across the city, you’ve got plenty of time in your hands. Invest after office hours and weekends in indulging in new skills and critical areas of interests that you have. Passionate about making the world’s best sandwiches? Maybe you can take a masterclass on cooking and learn to bake homemade bread! Secretly always found your PowerPoint presentations to be the best in the class? Here’s a chance to gain extra income that you never know, might need.

4. Self-care: Maybe you’ve not been going out too much now, and that paraphernalia of hair packs and face scrubs are probably going waste. But the world is indeed a mess right now. Social media feeds are bombarding users with disturbing visuals and news, some of which are likely even to be fake. Plus the downfall in the economy has even compelled us to put in the extra hours we may have never done willingly before. In this time, not only do you need some time to cool off those sacs under your eyes, but you also need to give yourself a little more love and attention than you used to before. You know you deserve it. A little self-pampering doesn’t hurt. Maybe you’re not going on that date you planned months ago any time soon, nor are you attending that wedding which got cancelled, but you do want to look and feel good about yourself. And that is more than enough.

4. Learn, invest, grow:  This can have so many connotations, and I mean all of those. Absorb everything around you like a sponge. Devour that library of yours that has been catching dust since ages. Or raid a friend’s/family 

member’s bookshelf. (There are a few that I’ve personally had my eye on since forever. If you’re reading this, you know who you are!). Maybe even step away from your genre and explore what lies beyond you. If you are into young adult fiction, maybe try reading contemporary literature! If you are into biographies, maybe try out some nice Bildungsroman or even Greek Mythology. There is so much out there! You need to get out and explore. Reading takes you someplace ethereal, dreamy and much better than the real world, and trust me; you might need that right now. When I talk about invest, it can be both financial and resourceful. Experts say that this is the best time to invest in equity. Go ahead and do that! You never know when it might help you. Learn, invest and grow yourself in the best possible manner you can fathom.

That’s all of my rants you get to here today. Stay tuned to read more of such content, and words of wisdom from me!