The COVID quarantine we’ve all been dealing with has gone on much longer than we originally thought it would, and it’s been hard on a lot of people. We’ve also undergone some amazing transformations during this time though, and in some ways we’ll be better off than before coming out of all of this. Here are five silver linings coming out of the COVID quarantine period.
We’ve stopped taking the little things for granted.
A ray of sunshine on a crisp spring day. Quality time with friends. Haircuts. HAIRCUTS, DAMMIT!! There are so many things that we’ve taken for granted in our daily lives that we’ve now been forced to do without. It’s forced us to consider what we’ve given up, and that mindfulness will likely stay with us coming out of quarantine, at least for a time.
When you get out of this lockdown, take the time to really savour all of the things you haven’t been able to do. Be present in those moments, those drinks with friends, that walk in the park. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I couldn’t agree more. How sweet it’s going to be, to whack that first golf ball off the tee on hole #1, and right into the water hazard on my right…
We’re cooking at home and eating as a family more often.
With restaurants closed, many families are beginning to cook at home more often. As a whole, we’re eating healthier, and we’re eating together as a family more than we normally do. Growing up, I always had dinner at the table with my family; many kids don’t though. It’s nice to hear stories about that communal dinner happening with more families once again.
We’re picking up new hobbies and habits.
Dinners with family aren’t the only habit we’re getting into. People the world over are picking up yoga, meditation, new workout routines, and any number of other healthy hobbies that can be enjoyed from home.
Studies have shown that it takes about 66 days for a new habit to go from something we force ourselves to do, to something we choose to do. This quarantine has lasted just about that long now, which means that some of us may just be able to do the unthinkable and hang on to those habits once our lives get back to normal.
We’ve learned just how adaptable we really are.
A week into the COVID quarantine, I wrote a post about my experience working from home for a full week. Reading that now, seven weeks later, literally makes me laugh out loud. Keeping the same routines as when I was going into the office? Hell no! I was waking up at 5:50 every morning then; these days I’m sleeping in until 7:30, and I wake up feeling like a million bucks.
The moral of the story is that, despite the fact that almost no part of daily life is what it used to be right now, we’ve all found ways to adapt to the new normal and somehow get by, both for work and within our personal lives. People who would have doused themselves in gasoline and set themselves on fire at the thought of using the internet have learned how to make video calls so they could stay in touch with loved ones. If that doesn’t speak to the adaptability of us as a species, I don’t know what does.
We’ve seen first-hand that the power to heal the environment is within our grasp.
Throughout the COVID crisis, we’ve witnessed some incredible environment changes; satellite images show air pollution levels declining rapidly in Asia, to the point that you can see the Himalayas in India again for the first time in decades. Dolphins and swans have been filmed exploring the rivers of Venice, which have cleared up significantly since the April of last year – just look at the side-by-side pictures below. In other places that have been under extreme lockdown, CO2 emissions have dropped by as much as 20%.
Venice in April of this year, versus last year
We’ve been so damn complacent when it comes to doing right by the environment (and ourselves by extension) up to this point, yet by being forced to stay inside for a bit, we’ve seen just how dramatic an impact we can have. We might even just come out of this with a renewed motivation to save the planet for future generations.
Wrapping it Up
When this quarantine is over, and the threat of COVID a distant memory, we are going to party like we’ve never partied before. There’s going to be a vibrancy and electricity to the air that you can almost feel just by setting foot out your front door. We’re already starting to get there. I can feel the energy shifting, and I can see it in the news headlines, which are nowhere near as apocalyptic as they were two weeks into quarantine.
Overall, I think we can all agree that this has been an experience that none of us are likely to forget any time soon. Let’s just make sure that we try and take all of the silver linings from it that we can!
