Due to the current Coronavirus outbreak my daily life has changed a lot, as I think it did for many people around the world as well. So I have decided to start this blog with some of my personal reflections about this outbreak.
My two main personal thoughts about this moment we are living are the following.
1) Suddenly, all the countries around the world are facing the exact same problem at the same time.
Yes, the virus does not care about your citizenship or the place you were born. It does not care about your religion. It does not care about your skin colour. It does not care about your sexual orientation. All the human beings above 60 years old have their life in danger, and the younger ones can get seriously sick and survive, or be mild infected and spread the virus. All in the exact same way. Suddenly the humanity as whole is facing the same problem, and we all need to take the same precautions and help each others in order to contain, and possibly overcome, this difficult situation. Perhaps this outbreak can teach us how to overcome differences and make people realize more that we are all human beings.
2) We all have been forced to adapt our daily life to the new circumstances.
All of a sudden most of the people are forced to work from home. Moreover, schools and daycares are closed. So many people have also to take care of their children while working. The cherry on top of the cake: it has also become difficult to order groceries online, to find what you want at the supermarkets, to have babysitters at home, or even someone helping you with housework. I have heard many people saying: "I cannot efficiently work from home because of my kids", "my type of work requires me to physically be at the office", or "the company production-line cannot stop".
All those sentences made me think: what if we can all learn something positive about this situation? We need to acknowledge that we cannot continue living the exact same life as before. This is a fact. Anyhow, when one door closes another one opens. We cannot work the same amount of hours per day as before, but is that really a problem? Some jobs require to be physically present at the work place, but many others do not. We live in a very technological era, so let's just use that in the most positive way. Let's move from face-to-face meetings to remote ones, from class lectures to online ones, and even from flying for visiting relatives and friends to hanging out with them via video call. I have lived in different countries in Europe, so I have friends spread literally all over the world, with whom I am regularly in touch via Skype and Facebook. I know that many people are still reluctant to embrace such transition, still thinking to be impossible to maintain long-distance friendships or relationships. Well, now we are all forced to make our relationships last, even if we do not meet in person. That is again a positive thought.
It is true: the world cannot stop, but it can slow down. We are all living in such a frenetic era that we have so little time left for enjoying life. So let's consider the bright side of this difficult situation we are going through. We just need to find another way of living, and perhaps at the end of the day we will discover that it is not bad at all. Our lives can slow down and we can learn to have more time for ourselves, our families, and all the beautiful things life gives us every day.