5 Life Lessons the Pandemic Has Taught Us
The pandemic has been tough, but it has definitely taught us a lot
Nowadays nobody is will be surprised to see a person wearing a face mask or standing two meters apart from others in order to keep a safe distance. Something that had been weird and unusual just around a year ago is now a new norm.
One of the first things that come to my mind when I hear someone saying “Covid-19” is this ironic expression:
May you live in interesting times
We all know that in reality, this phrase means the straight opposite — the person who is speaking wishes to whomever he is speaking to live during times of uncertainty and disorder.
As I see it, we are living now during times of uncertainty and disorder, at least in a sense. I suppose that many of you would agree with me —the pandemic has not been an easy time to live in. Some people have lost their relatives and loved ones, others lost their work and stable income source.
Let’s put it simply — life has been hard for many of us recently. Most of us would rather forget about the whole topic, like a horrible nightmare. However, like in every other situation, the pandemic has also its opposite side. In this article, I’d like to share with you several things that pandemics made me realize, and hopefully, you will be able to relate to my experience as well.
- Family and friends matter
The alarm rings, you wake up, wash your face & brush your teeth, grab your breakfast, and rush to work. You work in an office from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. When you are finally back home you do some chores, maybe make yourself supper, watch some TV and eventually fall asleep. That kind of plot may have been a reality for some of you, at least before the whole pandemic case took place. You had barely time to be with your loved ones because you had so much work to do, and your office was located somewhere far away from your home. You may have already been used to sacrifice your life for work and other chores, to sacrifice your family and children, sacrifice yourself.
However, the pandemic has changed everything in a flash. During the quarantines working online has become more popular than ever and that has a lot of pros. First, working online gave us more flexibility and freedom. You could have been wearing casual clothes during your workday and drinking your morning coffee at your first online meeting and you wouldn’t be punished for either of them.
However, that is not the only thing you could do because of online meetings that you might have had, the most valuable thing that you got is the precious time and your “home sweet home” location. Working from home and being usually in the same place with your loved ones makes a lot of good things possible, such as a short coffee break together, or asking each other for a piece of advice.
Another, and that time, negative thing is that this terrible pandemic has caused a lot of deaths. Death is always a hard thing to think and talk about, but it reminds us of our values. When our loved ones die, we suddenly remember how we loved them and regret that we have not spent enough time with them. The pandemic has shown us that people are mortal creatures and that we should value every single person in the world, but especially our relatives and friends because we don’t know when any of them will pass away.
2. Self-care matters — life is a fragile balance between will and pleasure
Selfish, Egoistical, Greedy, Nartisstic, Mercenary — that are just some adjectives that are used to describe a self-centered person, but is self-care one of them?
If you’re someone who has always said you don’t have time for self-care, or that self-care is so selfish, you’re not alone.
However, as several scientific studies have shown, self-care is really important to every one of us and I can say for sure that it has nothing to do with the qualities mentioned above. To state my idea, here is a definition of self-care from the Collins English Dictionary:
Self-care is when a person looks after their own basic health needs, without needing anyone else to help them.
As you can see, self-care is the ability to look after yourself, and fulfill your needs. I would even say that is not all about massage and refreshing face masks, but it is even more about prioritizing, making yourself time to rest and recharge, eating healthy, staying fit, and finding a purpose in your life.
One of the most important lessons, the pandemic has taught us that when you take care of yourself, you do it also for your friends, family, relatives, and community. Taking precautions, such as wearing a face mask and staying home when feeling ill, are ways to keep ourselves, our loved ones, and our neighbors from getting sick and avoid overwhelming our health care system. All of them have shown to be incredibly important for a single one of us and for the whole society.
3. Work from anywhere you want and stay organized
The pandemic has brought us a wonderful opportunity of online work and gave us a chance to enjoy life to the fullest…sitting on our sofa, at home.
One of the best advantages of remote work is, of course, no need for regular work trips, no that early mornings anymore, and maybe even getting your morning coffee in bed. The pandemic has taught us that we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves. However, it has also taught us time managing skills and how to be more productive, and get work done, when you have three small kids staying at home with you. One of the most significant lessons that pandemic has taught all of us that “quality is always more important than quantity”.
Another thing that the pandemic had a strong impact on is peoples’ creativity. During the quarantines, people tended to feel bored more often than usual, or let’s say they just had some more free time, which has led to a creativity burst because a creative state of mind needs time and peace to come out.
Creativity comes hand in hand with spare time that people might have and the amount of unused inner energy that they might have in themselves. Last year we were lucky enough and the pandemic has offered us both options.
4. Save money
Not all learned lessons are sweet, some of the classes are tough and tart. One of them is saving money. The pandemic has taught us to play it safe and have at least some savings in case of an unexpected situation occurs. It is well-known fact that life is a strict teacher, especially if you don’t learn your lesson in time.
Before the pandemic people used to spend their money not even thinking much about that. During the pandemic, many people lost their jobs and as a result, they started saving money or thanked the luck if they had already been doing it for a while had some savings on their bank account. During the quarantines, people used to stay home and have minimized their interaction with others, and that led to savings as well. I hope that the pandemic has taught us a lesson that planning your budget and saving money is extremely important, and that saving money can impact an individual’s quality of life
5. Never take the ability to travel for granted
As I have already mentioned, sometimes we have to be in lack of something if we won't truly understand how important it actually was.
In this case, I am talking about traveling. Traveling had become so easy that it seemed like the furthest corners of Earth are close to each other and easy to get to. Many people used to take traveling for granted, not even thinking about it too much. Borders had thinned and everyone could live in whatever country they wanted to and withdraw cash from ATMs anywhere in the world.
In the modern era, humankind was probably never so housebound as these days. That had pushed us to rethink our values, to appreciate what we already have, and to enjoy every moment of our life, even if we are not currently lying on a sunny Greek beach.
Suddenly, when travel became rather a privilege than a tribute, we had some time to stop for a while and look into ourselves, take a glance at our values, and maybe even have a chance to start a new hobby or to explore our backyard...
In conclusion, I’d like to say that the pandemic has taught us many important lessons that can be useful for many of us in the future. I also think that some things that we were forced to do during the endless quarantines, such as working or studying online, but that turned out to be a good change for everyday routines and opened up new possibilities, can be possibly practiced in the future as well.
I think that we should not blame last year for being difficult and so “interesting”, but rather try to find something we have learned through the last few months and value the experience we have gained.
