by Mubasshira Tabassum
We are living on the upside-down in a totally ‘Stranger things’ kind of way. There are monsters out there and the world seems apocalyptic. Staying indoors is our only way to save ourselves from the state of war we are up against. If you think about it, we are at war with something so minuscule that it cannot be beheld with our naked eyes. We are constantly fighting to stay safe and stay put. If you are thinking that the lockdown or quarantine has made you unproductive, you are probably wrong because the world is not the same anymore. We are all trying to find some form of control within our chaotic lives and amidst the disoriented world.
So far, self-quarantine is the best way to keep ourselves and our communities safe. There are in fact a lot of things we can do during this quarantine period, but let us not talk about that now. Let's un-quarantine ourselves so that we can avoid falling into the pitfalls of quarantine and rather embrace the situation.
Besides the exciting things we could do with the gift of time we have right now, there are some things we should try to avoid doing.
DO NOT PANIC: The situation might seem like an endless jigsaw puzzle but that should not be the reason to panic. Essentially, it is quite easy to panic during extreme situations as such. After all, we have never experienced a global pandemic before. It might be our normal response to the situation but let’s try not to panic.
CHECK NEWS THAT IS VALID: Another possible situation that has been going around, is the fact that a lot of fear-mongering news is circulating on social media. Some of those news portals might actually not have proper information except clickbait headlines that would only generate fear. It is important to check valid news portals. Checking whatever news that pops up on our newsfeeds will only feed the fear generating aspect of it.
TAKE TIME FOR GRANTED: We do have a lot of spare time now, more than we can allocate to doing things that we usually do. The uncertainty factor that has arisen from this situation, has left a lot of us unmotivated to do anything at all. However, we should not just take all this extra time for granted. There might be a lot of things we have left on hold, thinking that we would do those when we have time. Now that we do, we might as well utilize this time to our best use.
THINK IN A SMALL SHELL: It is definitely frustrating for a lot of us since this situation has caused a huge state of uncertainty and fear of the unknown. But, as global citizens, we should think about all the people, who are already victims of this situation. If we only think about ourselves and how we are having to stay indoors, the point of staying indoors will eventually lose its meaning. We should think about the world and how the whole world is affected right now. We must give our self-quarantine a valid purpose.
GOING OUTSIDE DEFYING ALL ODDS: Let us just admit this. There is no new normal. We are not used to this. Even though we are allowed to go out for specific purposes, mostly essential needs such as grocery shopping, we should not try too hard to just go out and pretend as nothing happened. Staying home might seem excruciatingly difficult but we must remember that we are doing this for ourselves, for our families, and for our communities.
We are all in this together. We can listen to each other and talk to each other because despite living in a socially distant world right now, with the gift of technology, we can still stay connected to each other and communicate with each other. Quarantine is the time to avoid unnecessary panicking and doing things for the betterment of our communities because once this is over, we will all meet in a new world we will have created for ourselves.