Online Only Is Not Enough
By: Antonija Osojnik
Tags: Mental Health Awareness, Work From Home, Sustainability Consultant, Human Behavior, Covid 19 Crisis

Online Only Is Not Enough

We can all learn from this Covid crisis that while ‘online’ is something we can survive, it is not enough - we need real, live human interactions Antonija Osojnik Follow Dec 22, 2020 · 4 min read

Photo by Maksim ŠiŠlo on Unsplash

We can all learn from this Covid crisis that while ‘online’ is something we can survive, it is not enough. We need real, live human interactions. | Medium

This fall, one full year has passed since we moved to Germany. They say that for ex-pats, the most difficult year is the first year. And wasn’t it indeed a challenge for us as well for all ex-pats out there. Feel for you, brave souls, wherever you are!

Pandemic and lockdowns when you already feel alone enough are not something you need at that moment. Meeting new people in a new (more or less) friendly environment is completely different than meeting new people who are all of a sudden afraid even to be around you.

So, my only option was to connect even more online.

At least what was good in all this, I am not a newcomer in this online world. I have met so many extraordinary people #online. Most of them are my truest and most loyal friends.

However, as a true ENFJ (who nowadays doesn’t know what Myer — Briggs means, I advise you to reach for some useful tools like the Myer-Briggs test to understand each other better), real contact, and face-to-face human interactions are like food to me. We all need some time alone, but if you ask me, my soul is the fullest in the good company of another human being.

Let's say that for most of us, life events didn’t go as we plan in 2020…

At the beginning of the pandemic in Germany, my son was bullied in his first school in a small German town that presents itself, #online, as the most inclusive little city globally. So let’s move again, this time to beautiful Heidelberg. Even lockdown didn’t stop me in my intention to find my little piece of heaven in Deutschland.

An #online wedding of my only brother without us, on the other side of the world, isn’t enough if you want to hug him and his lovely wife. Celebrations #online are not enough.

And then my Dad died. He was really sick and he got Covid…

The last phone call with him wasn’t enough. He wasn’t aware of anything, but I wasn’t there to give him some comfort. I wasn’t also with my mother or younger brother, who was in Canada's own lockdown. So we grieved separately.

During that period, what saved me was my partner and best friend's love—talking about our feelings and discussing our new reality. Hugs from my son. Human touch. Seeing smiles of people we love.

And work. While working from home, #online, I have been advocating for that possibility in the last ten years. Germany, the country I live in now and plan to stay in, is currently in the process of implementing in its Labour Law Act the right for everyone to work from home.

That should be good news if implemented without forcing it.

Right to work from everywhere in the world, flexibility, freedom to control your own life, all that I am preaching from the moment I have started to research the sustainability of Labour Markets, now is our reality. My most productive years were working from home or at the Adriatic sea's cost with my son next to me during most of my working hours. It was also a life challenging experience working with him in his preschool phase, but it was my own choice.

However, when working from home is necessary like now, not just the right, that shows all its weaknesses in its implementation.

When you must, it is different than when you want something, isn’t it?

What I have learned from that period of my life is the importance of setting boundaries, knowing your own weak spots and those around you. Not all professions are suitable for mobile work, and not all people have the readiness or skills to transform their businesses or jobs to digital. Nor to become digital nomads. We are not all rewired to communicate online effectively, and it needs an effort to express our thoughts, wishes, and needs only online.

So work and life balance while connecting it exclusively #online or working from home can be sustainable if this presents our personal choice. To conclude, we are more resilient than at the beginning of this growing process. We have learned a lot from this pandemic experience. Isolation is not a normal state for human beings, and whenever we feel anxious in these lonely moments, we shouldn’t forget that. That this is not ‘normal’. In the longterm, whether professionally or privately, we need real human interactions, authentic social connections, real-time face-to-face, eyes to eyes, sincere smiles without any kind of masks — literally or methaphorically speaking, and fully present moments with our dearest people — to strive.