Positivity in the time of COVID-19

With COVID-19 now in its second week of its grip on South Africa, toilet paper is hard to find, anxiety is high, and the self-isolating population is slowly losing their minds. Moms and dads are figuring out that teachers really should be paid more, and millions of us are facing the fact that cooking is not within our skillset.

Let’s face it. The coronavirus sucks. Self-isolation sucks. Home-schooling sucks. But, do you know what doesn’t suck? Being given the opportunity to re-evaluate how we interact with the world, and how the world interacts with us.

Yes, we are being forced to change the way that we work, the way that we live, and pretty much everything that we know. But this change isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Small businesses are being given the opportunity to strategize, explore creative solutions and to reassess issues that have surfaced during this time. Families are in isolation together under the same roof with nothing else to do but talk and entertain each other and spend time with one another. The world is being reminded of the values that have been absent from our lives for decades: family, quality of life, self-reflection.

With all of the excess time being afforded to us due to being at home and the economic standstill that has come with the virus, we are being given the opportunity to reflect, to grow and to practice some self-care.

We are literally being forced out of the rat race and into a period that we do not know how to navigate because we have become so obsessed with money and things and business and work.

Perhaps this is a time for a global resetting of mindsets, and a shift in thinking to become more focused on people and humanity and kindness.

If Shakespeare could write one of his greatest works in quarantine during the plague, then the possibilities for what could come out of this situation are endless!