Quarantine Learnings

2020 has been a year full of shocks more than surprises. The most devastating being the Covid-19 Pandemic that has scorched world economies. It revealed the unpreparedness of even the most advanced countries to fight the disease. For us, the biggest shock was the countrywide lockdown and the quarantine that followed with it. For someone who used to spend 1280 hours a day outside the house - working, meeting friends, going out, partying this was a big change in lifestyle. Even more for the teenagers who were on the verge of beginning their summer Vacations. Everyone had their plans shattered except for the ones who had decided which new show they wanted to watch next. The same was the case for me, used to spending most of my time outside the house, it was a major fall back because it happened about the same time I got done with my 12th Board Examinations. I could count myself a little lucky as there were many of my friends whose papers got postponed due to the lockdown. However, while the downsides of this lockdown were devastating, looking at the upsides, it was a necessary move orchestrated by nature to heal itself. We’ve all read the changes the lockdown brought to the environment, dolphins in the canals of Italy, improvement in the air quality in almost every country and much more. It also gave us humans the time to heal ourselves and re-develop ourselves, make us ready for the world after the lockdown. The sooner one could accept the reality they were in, the easier it was to work on oneself and learn new things, hobbies, interests, traits and much more. I learned quite a few things from this quarantine. One being, if we don't protect nature, it has its own ways that we humans aren't gonna like. Governments and Businesses should come out of this quarantine with new business methods to reduce the damage we were doing to the environment. Else, another pandemic won't be far away. The second thing that i learned from this quarantine was - it gave us time to get closer to people whom we had forgotten. It could even be the family members who you lived with in the same house. Even without actually meeting so many people, you emotionally connected to so many of your old friends, siblings, uncles, aunts and grandparents. It made me understand the importance of family and every person who made my life better and beautiful. The third thing I learned from this lockdown was to take this time and work on myself. It made us all realise that the world after this lockdown won't be the same. Developing oneself, learning new things that make you better is very important today. Having skills that no one else has is what makes you different and better. I can be anything that you've wanted to before in life but never got time. Maybe read the book you always said you would one day, take up that online course you always wanted to, develop your hobbies, learn new hobbies, develop interests in things you didn't know existed, and so much more. If you start, there will never be enough things you can learn. The lockdown has opened opportunities for the people which they couldn't find themselves. All we need is patience and will power to find them and utilise it for our benefit. Those are my quarantine learnings.

- Shubham Mohta

by Chandni Gala