It is out of this world, and in fact, it still feels surreal that we’re living through a pandemic called Covid-19, and we’ve done so for the past (almost) two years at the point of writing. We’ve all probably read about a few pandemics that happened in history – the Black Death, the Great Plague of London and the American Polio Epidemic – but the fact that we’re living through the worst pandemic in modern world is crazy.
But some KTAs!
#1 – As humans, we’re quick to adapt to changes IF we want to.
Can you guys imagine a life full of roadblocks with curfews and total travel limitations? We can do it if we want. We all stayed at home and spend the most time with our families or alone (if you’re unfortunate) in our lives ever. We all stopped going to offices and work from home – for ONCE and for REAL. About April 2020, the whole world was facing shortage of YOGA MATS because people were so bored that they succumbed to exercising voluntarily. TikTok had its overnight fame and people were raving about DALGONA.
Point: We can change and do anything so quickly if we want to.
#2 – In the interest of the ‘E’ in ESG, we reduced global carbon footprint just by working from home
Especially in Asia, WFH seemed farfetched even in February 2020, but everything flipped within a month. In the past almost two years, WFH has worked and people haven’t just worked MORE, but most have worked more efficiently. We didn’t need to drive out to face 2 hours of traffic back and forth every weekday and that 2 hours were optimised better be it on work or on our own well-being.
But will employers continue this adoption or will they care more about making sense of their office space rents that they’re enforcing employees to return to office?
Government has a say – if they want to step in.
#3 – Many marriages didn’t survive the pandemic
And that is sad. When couples say their vows, they always say they’d live together, forever, in sickness and in health. But truth is, many couldn’t survive being (stuck) at home 24/7 with their spouses to the point that they filed for divorce.
I enjoyed all the time I had spent with Ashraf at home, but I don’t think he enjoyed it as much as I did. Ha ha ha. But thankfully, we had a house big enough for each of us to have our own space to work from – which I admit, isn’t something many of us have so that must have helped a lot.
#4 – This Red Book meant nothing
In fact, many lodged police reports to say they’ve misplaced their passports or just totally forgot where they put it! Almost no one had the liberty to fly around the world. Even if you had all the money in the world, or all the access to private transports, most places/countries wouldn’t happily accept just anybody unless truly necessary. Heck, the Australian government closed their borders to THEIR OWN PEOPLE so many Australians were just stuck overseas for months.
#5 – We live in such a globalised and borderless world, that other country’s problems tend to become ours too.
In late 2019, I remember booking our winter trip to Seoul and there were talks on this new virus in China. Honestly no one really cared mainly because we thought (1) it was just China’s problem; and (2) how bad can it be? But this virus has been shiz contagious and has taken millions of lives, not to mention having destroyed the livelihoods of billions others. In fact, when I was in Bangkok in January 2020, it was still “China’s problem”, though, there were worries that Thailand had already recorded 15 cases. In today’s statistics, if a country records just 15 new daily cases, Covid-19 is as good as dead in that country!
Cloud Nayn 