6 Lessons Learnt From The Coronavirus Pandemic

There is no doubt that 2020 has been a tumultuous year, for many reasons. There have been those of us who couldn’t wait for it to be over, and then those of us who were suspicious about the next year coming; who told us all not to hype it up so much (the higher you are, the further you have to fall – they would say), to slip into the new year quietly and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! Now safely on the other side of the abomination that was 2020 and three days into 2021, I’d like to reflect upon the good, bad and bittersweet lessons this past year has taught me, and maybe all of us.

1. That life is short.

This seems like the most obvious one to start with. It is probably one of the first thoughts that came to people. This is also one of the rawest and most fear-laden lessons because it is instinctual and part of a survival mechanism that is hardwired into every creature on earth!

Although it may be different for us all, everyone remembers the moment the penny dropped, and they realised just how serious this virus was. With the quarantine that followed came a multitude of worries for me. These worries included, the length of the quarantine; the severity of the virus; the potential illness or death of family members and friends; the potential to be made redundant; not being able to keep up with my rent or bills; to see the small amount of savings I’d managed to stow away obliterated; the potential to be evicted from the house that I rent; the loss of career prospects in the arts that had just begun to take off…

I am not unique in these worries. A crisis of such magnitude, in truth, has spawned a plethora of different reactions. Including panic buying, grand acts of care or charity, and even denial that Coronavirus is really happening!

At the heart of things though, somewhere amongst the longing for this whole situation to be over with, I began to realise how much I cherish life and the people in it. I began to think about how busy I’d been, how little I’d seen or spent time with those that I care about, how much I appreciated them being in my life. It made me start planning for the future. Where I’d travel to, who I’d see, what I really wanted from life and how I was going to make the most of each moment in between. Which leads me onto the next lesson…

2. How imperative connecting with other people and having a work-life balance is.

Although this pandemic has cultivated a lot of apprehension and anxiety within people, at the same time, I started to recognise that, for me, with the lockdown came an odd feeling of comfort. A feeling that we were all in this together, that we had all (mostly) as a planet, finally pressed pause on this crazy train.

There is a joke that I have seen being passed around ever since I started using the internet. The one where a person tries to successfully get good grades (or commit themselves to their career), get enough sleep, and have a good social life. The joke stems from the widespread feeling that such a thing is impossible.

We are so busy in our everyday lives that we don’t always remember to make time for the people around us. One of the reasons for this is due to the sheer number of responsibilities we face (that only seem to get harder) as we progress through life, forcing us to prioritise the time we do have. We are constantly assessing and reflecting on the outcomes of how we spend our time and the cost/benefit analyses of every single action we take.

There is nothing wrong with planning for the future. On paper, it’s an incredibly smart thing to do; even considerate to the people around you. There are also those of us who, due to how expensive everything is, feel that the option to stop working isn’t always available. The problem, however, lies in the insatiable need for more; telling us that nothing we do is enough and keeping our mindset stuck firmly on what comes next instead of the now. Do we take a breather and spend quality time with family or friends? Or do we use that time to squeeze more work in?

We rationalise that we are putting in a lot of work now so that we can enjoy a better tomorrow. Whilst I agree with this concept, and thoroughly believe in the importance of hard work… It’s also imperative that we don’t become stuck in a nasty cycle that makes it so, by the time we get to that better tomorrow, we’re too lost in not thinking it’s enough and planning for the next thing to take a breath and realise how far we have come.

It is the people I spent my time with who have helped me immensely throughout this pandemic. To those of us who don’t have access to the internet, that circle of people we can relate to potentially gets even smaller. Making the people they do have, all the more significant. We need to start nurturing the relationships we have with those around us and cultivating new ones, because, when it comes down to it, the job we spent fifty years working at isn’t going to be the one sitting beside us keeping us company in our last moments.

3. Why capitalism is a lie.

This is a statement that will divide a lot of people. On the surface, I do admit, that the idea of everybody being free to become whatever they desire if only they put the work in, is a good one. When taking into account differences in financial situations, location-based opportunities, education, prejudices and the types of environments we grow up in (alongside the obstacles imposed by power-hungry people or organisations), things start to look a little more complicated.

Before the UK lockdown was enforced, I was wishing for the world to pause. To be able to step off the very fast rollercoaster ride for a while. I felt stuck on a never-ending productivity train where every day I must be working myself to the bone to make the best for my future. But when that future came, I’d be too paranoid to enjoy it; instead, caught in a never-ending cycle of working for an imaginary future that never seemed to materialise.

What I am describing above isn’t Capitalism as a whole, merely a symptom of it. In addition to this, almost every other system we seem to have come up with in the past has ended up being squandered by the corruptible nature of power (but that’s for a different article). The thing about power within the Capitalist structure is that it suggests we cannot all be on equal footing; that, for some of us to have power, others must forego it. Rather than living up to the idea of abundance, it thrives on scarcity and exclusivity to keep us chasing that carrot on the string, dangling in front of us.

In truth, Capitalism is just a system, amongst many others, that we have decided to try on for size. But it is so deeply ingrained in every element of our lives that we cannot imagine a society without it; even though it could be argued that the system isn’t working for around 90% of us! The lockdown gave me a chance to stop running about like a headless chicken and to just think, to observe; a luxury not always afforded to us when our minds are constantly filled with never-ending to-do lists.

It made me realise how often we make excuses for those above us or are encouraged to demonise those below us; to frame poverty and strife as a justifiable consequence of perceived immoral behaviour. Many have lost their lives because of it.

The changes that we had to make (in my country specifically) for our first national lockdown to work opened my eyes to new possibilities; to new ways, we could treat each other as human beings. We could rebuild relationships, stop seeing every deed or action as transactional, show compassion for those who have fallen on hard times and fix existing problems within the systems we already have set up which were supposed to help them, we could stop turning to the poorest of our society to bear the brunt of all our mistakes. Although there is no such thing as a utopia for everyone, the lockdown really instilled that there are a lot more possibilities we can explore that could enable us to find pragmatic solutions to our current problems. We are only as strong as our weakest member and it is all of our responsibilities to build each other up.

4. The importance of saving for a rainy day.

Although what I wrote above about Capitalism being just one system of many is true… It doesn’t change the fact that it is currently one of the most dominant systems a lot of us have and, depending on what country you are from and what your financial situation is, we have no choice but to jump in and play the game. It’s important to assess the cards that we have all been dealt and find ways to make it work for us.

So many of us don’t really understand what we can do with our money; how we can make it stretch and how we can make it work for us. This was a big problem of mine too. One that can materialise for all sorts of reasons, from us not having really been taught how money works, to growing up in an environment in which money worries were prevalent, teaching us that anything to do with finances is something to fear.

This pandemic gave me the time to really get to know my finances, to explore what I could do with it and where I was going wrong. From looking at ways other people have made their money work for them, such as investing, buying and selling, learning a skill and offering their services online, the multitude of advice out there concerning how to start making passive income… To government incentives, ISAs and savings accounts. There are so many resources out there if you know where to look and although it may seem daunting at first, even just beginning to understand a little bit of it will feel like a huge milestone crossed. For me, it gave me more confidence in my situation and allowed me to take control.

During the period of time in the UK when a lot of us were to be made redundant, the possibility of receiving furlough seemed non-existent and I still needed to find money for rent/bills/food, the money that I had saved was a godsend. People always repeat, put money aside for a rainy day, but I only fully understood how important that was when the pandemic happened. It is so vital that we have some sort of a backup, even if we are only managing to sneak £10 into our savings accounts each month. As 2020 proved, we never know what might happen…but if we have prepared, even in a small way, it’ll take a weight off our shoulders when you know what hits the fan!

5. That working on my mental health is just as vital as working on my physical health.

It took me a while to adjust to lockdown life, to stop feeling that if I paused even for a second, I would feel like a lazy, worthless deadbeat. I would think about the weight of these words, the way we judge entire groups of people and the way we overcompensate in our own lives to not be seen in that way. I’d think about how uncomfortable so many of us are with just sitting in our own company, with our own thoughts. Of enjoying the here and now, of doing something for ourselves. We’re almost subconsciously trained to focus more on our shortcomings and failures instead of seeing how far we have come.

My mental health wasn’t great you guys! Although exercising releases endorphins and looking after our physical health, in general, has been shown to make us happier, too many of us neglect our mental health. If we weren’t in crisis before, this pandemic exposed just how many of us were on the edge, scarcely coping with the demands of modern life. The stark increase in calls to mental health hotlines in the UK alone is very telling of this.

Though we are all working through different issues, for me, when the lockdown hit and all of the responsibilities I did have vanished overnight, I was left wondering what to do with myself. Things had been busy for so long and I had compromised my own wellbeing so much that I was badly out of practice when it came to doing things just for me. It took me a while and the help of a few loved ones to make me see that I could use what seemed like empty time to really focus on cultivating a better relationship with my mind and cutting myself some slack.

I came to realise that everybody responds differently to a crisis, and that’s okay. What matters is that we’re there for others and there for ourselves. When we are in a better state of mind, we are more resourceful, more able to make good long-term choices, know our boundaries and thrive in our relationships.

More than this, getting help is not a sign of weakness, it is proactive and an investment in your future self. The help I received definitely made an impact on me. Something that I think about every day is The Three-Legged Stool Analogy. This analogy has been altered for many different subjects, but the one I learnt that focused on mental wellbeing never left me.

There are three legs on a stool. For this stool to be effective and not topple over when we sit on it, each leg must be the same length and have had just as much effort put into it in order to balance. The legs represent different types of activities we engage in to make up our days.

- The first leg represents Necessary Activities that we must do avoid negative life consequences, such as looking for jobs, paying the bills, completing homework assignments etc.

- The second leg represents Routine Activities, such as showering, washing up, getting dressed, among others…

- The third leg represents Pleasurable Activities, things that we do just for our own enjoyment. Maybe that’s playing a video game, reading our favourite book in the bath, hanging out with friends or bingeing that show we like…

If we are doing too much of one thing, or not enough of the other, the stool will become unbalanced. If we ignore the situation and don’t find out what the problem is, we will inevitably topple over.

Through utilising this exercise, I came to realise that despite the pressures modern life throws at us, it is a tragedy to feel worthless if you are not consistently performing at an almost super-human level 24/7. As and when we get a better hold of Coronavirus and things seem to be returning to normal, it is of the utmost importance that we continue to take care of our mental wellbeing unapologetically.

6. That it’s crucial to develop and nurture your own voice.

This lockdown has given me a lot of stress, but it has also given me something that I had longed for, for a long time. It has thrown me back to how I felt as a child. I am enjoying quality time with those that are close to me; I am rediscovering my love of reading, writing and cooking; I am exercising more, committing to yoga and meditation – and I feel great for it! I feel, for the first time in a while as if I am bursting with creativity, and I am endlessly creating.

There is something that happens when you are not having to police your creative choices for money, for lack of time, or for the irrational fear that your peer group will not agree with your thought-process and condemn you from future work; from a future place in the industry that you have been in love with from a very young age. You begin to enjoy yourself; you begin to trust in your own judgements, you pick and choose freely from a wide range of inspirational work to learn from and you flourish because there are no imaginary obstacles holding you back.

I wrote this last point three months after the UK had gone into lockdown. It was when I had just started writing a novel after feeling as if I had been too busy to write like I am now for years prior! Although this section seems clearly geared towards creative activities, I believe it translates into all aspects of our lives.

Whether it’s in class, with a group of our peers, on stage or in the boardroom at work, so many of us hold back on expressing what we really think. We do this for a lot of reasons. Not wanting to disagree with our boss, to avoid seeming weird in front of our friends, refusing to believe that we have anything of value to say… And then somebody else will voice our point for us and we’ll be left thinking, if only we had spoken up.

This isn’t just for workplace situations. Getting to know our own voice, what we do and don’t like, where our boundaries lie, equips us for all sorts of life experiences. More than just being confident at work, we get to know what we want out of life, stop accepting toxic behaviour from others and are in a better place to work on ourselves if we come to realise that, chances are, we also hold toxic traits.

The way we have gleaned so much knowledge in such a short space of time about Coronavirus is because the world collaborated. Scientists, people and organisations, stood up and used their voices. Although we didn’t always listen to each other and some of what those voices were saying was questionable to say the least, we are much better equipped to deal with this virus than we were previously. The world needs your voice. Do not hide your expertise to make others comfortable because there is someone out there right now with half of the knowledge you have, speaking up and being applauded for it.

It’s one of my hopes for 2021 that, adversely to how I have laid out this piece of writing, we don’t file away 2020 into a list of past moments never to be looked at again… Rather, we learn from them and take them with us into the new year; utilise them and allow them to propel us forwards, towards something better.