Year 2020! New way of Life!

Locked inside my house, gazing outside the window, I see the barren park. The place which would be otherwise buzzing with people jogging, kids playing, dogs being walked around and many others enjoying the sunshine. As I turn to look at the other side, I see the almost empty highway which would be otherwise filled with heavy evening traffic when people would be travelling back home at the end of their workday. This is year 2020! 

In my last post [a-nostalgic-visit-to-my-own-place] I was surprised to see how much my life has changed in the last 10 years since I started this blog. But then I realized the change that has happened in my way of life in last 1.5 months is much bigger than the entire 10 years put together. And it is not just for me but for everyone. As pointed out by lot of world leaders, these are unprecedented times. The entire world seems to have come to an absolute halt. As a result our life has come to a standstill. But did we not complaint too often about life running fast? Every time I spoke to my friends and family, everyone had one thing in common

 "I do not know how days and months are going by! Oh, another year is coming to an end!"

 But the last one month did not just fly past! 

I agree that we all have a lot of complaints and how this pandemic has put all our life’s plan on hold! But I am sure once we are over this, we will remember this time of our life and recall how our life had slowed down and we had ample time. So let’s look at some brighter side of this lockdown life. Below are some thoughts on changes in my way of life and the world around. 

1.      I do not recall when I last saw my eyes without kajal.  Not atleast in the last 10 years of corporate life. But now I have been without it for 40+ days.  I like to see the new me in the mirror without any curtains of fakeness and when I look into my eyes, I am seeing the real me.

2.     These days I do not feel the difference between weekdays and weekends. Suddenly the Friday excitement and Monday blues are gone. I still do office work, but there is no travel to office and no requirement of dressing up formally. The moment I close my laptop in the evening, my work day has ended with still a lot of my evening time left. I can read, write, watch TV and spend time with myself and my loved ones. I have been catching up on some of my favorite old movies, some classic movies which I missed watching earlier, reading and re-reading some books from my list.  

If you want my suggestion, you can read:
Sapiens - A brief history of Human Kind by Yuval Noah Harari

3.   The environmentalist inside me is very happy for how the Nature is able to restore the damage we have caused continuously from past so many years. I never imagined there would be a way in which people could be convinced to reduce their carbon footprint on the Planet. But now, it is all happening by itself and all it took was an invisible virus. I like to believe this to be Nature’s way of showing us our real place. If you still don't believe in Climate change, read my post on chasing-ice-documentary-of-lifetime and watch it. 

I am still not very positive if way of life and mindset will have any change once life comes back to normal. History shows us we have always been greedy and never been kind towards Nature! I hope we are proven wrong this time and make some good changes in our life permanent.

Even one less car ride a month, one less addition to the wardrobe or one less bin of garbage will make a difference!

4.       Most often we hear from elderly people how they wished they did things differently and stayed in touch with people from their younger days. I like to consider this to be such a checkpoint for us and it is still not very late. I have been utilizing this time to catch up with my old friends, relive and laugh at old memories, browse through some old pictures and talk to them to check how they are holding up.

As we move forward, we leave lot of things and people behind. As a kid, I would find ways and means of spending time and I thought 24hrs in a day was too long. As I grew up, the equation of time kept on changing and reached a stage where I started thinking why do we have only 24hrs in a day? It was always a race against the value of an activity and the time investment it required. But now I feel that my childhood days are back with an extra shot of technology. So yes, I am trying to make the best use of it.

5.       Cooking has become one favorite hobby everyone around seems to be indulging in. I am no different. This isolated way of life has shown us that we can do well without restaurants and home deliveries. Each one of us has been trying to make food at home and add some healthy ingredients to it. With so much time at hand and ample recipes available online, cooking experiments has become my favorite pastime. Baking is my favorite these days! Previously I did quick cooking to help with the meals but now I have the time to try something new and fancy. If not anything, the next time I order a pizza or buy a pastry, I would know why it carries so many calories and how much cheese and sugar has gone into it 😉

These were my top 5 picks of how the quarantined life has changed my way of living and what I have been doing to make the most of it! In whatever phase of life you are in, I am sure you have your side of story of this new way of life. Do share some in the form of comments.

StayHome & StaySafe 
Follow Social Distancing

Hope to see you all soon…

~ ~ Cheers ~ ~