LOCKDOWN : Blessing or Nightmare?
By: Payal Shah
Tags: Coronavirus, Work Life Balance, Lockdown

We heard it first happen in China, then Italy. At first it all just seemed like numbers. We went on a holiday to Sri Lanka and got back. Despite getting screened at the airport, the seriousness of it just didn’t kick in.

Then things got serious in India, numbers had just BEGUN to show in India, and the country already seemed to be taking massive steps towards getting ready for what everyone said, was to come. Varun became paranoid and wanted me to not risk the virus being transmitted through me to his parents. I still didn’t get it. I kept thinking that I’ll be careful, and I won’t spread it. That I need to go to the office, because that’s what I do. I keep my commitments before me — almost to a fault that I won’t change anything in it and will make everything work around it.

Thankfully the governments of the world made that choice for me — the one I wasn’t ready to take. Thus came the lockdown. With it came reports and numbers from the world over, conversations about saving the economy vs. saving lives. What is the better choice to make for the world today?

That’s when it hit me.

Life is far more important to me than that 9–5 job. That job, that I put before everything else, doesn’t give me any sort of happiness or sense of purpose. I look for it as my source of income, as the place after going to which, I allow myself to go guilt free about actually living my life. WHAT? How did I get here? How did I make my life revolve around this work, so much that I put everything else behind? Did I always need to give myself “permission” to have fun basis the amount of work I had done? Have I always been wired to “work hard”?

I read the Meluha series recently. There was the Somras that was initially created as an elixir to help people extend their life spans, but the ill effects of its manufacturing process brought long-term misery to an entire clan.

When does good tip beyond a point to become bad?

Has this hunger for money, the “ambition” to succeed, the race to be number one, the want to be recognised, tipped the world over the edge?

Money was meant to aid us in living happier lives, to serve as a mere medium to help get to all the ingredients required to fulfil all of our dreams.

But has it really stayed a mere medium?

It has this power over us, like a drug, that we can’t let go of — correction — WON’T let go of.

Something was definitely wrong. Not just with me, with the entire world.

Every single human being needed change.

And it came.

The “Shiva”. The “Neelkanth” in the form of this minuscule — visible only under a microscope — virus. From Vishnu’s 1st avatar that grew bigger than the earth to stamp on his enemy, to maybe THIS 10th “KALKI” avatar?

SARS-COV-2 brought about a gigantic revolution in the way that we have had to relook our working patterns.

Entire nations were locked down; people were asked to stay at home and get out only if necessary. The result for me? Well…

I got the much needed break that I had secretly been craving for. The Sri Lanka trip was just the tip of the iceberg of the break that I had unknowingly needed; the slow down that I had had to have; the charge of life that I had been wanting to take back. I got a chance to inculcate the habit that has been brewing closer to my heart than I knew — exercise; love & care for my physical body that I had been meaning to since the longest time; but somehow I didn’t know just how to bring it into my life; all those daily mental notes and 1 hour inclusions in my schedule, just fell in place. Art, colour & music — all of it; I had forgotten I am the happiest when I’m surrounded by music. I am at peace when I have those colour pencils in my hand. Found the time to bring it all back. Much needed time-spending with Varun; both of us with our crazy social schedules just forgot to make time for the relationship and kept pushing it on the back-burner. All this amazing quality time together, is gold and I didn’t know I craved for it this much. I truly love my husband. We managed to loosen the knots of certain issues that had revolved around our lives, and are now slowly beginning to find a middle ground; one that truly works for both of us; OUR balance. Introspection on so many issues about my life, that I had just pushed under the rug, to be cleaned someday when I would be ready to unravel, if at all — the freedom of time allowed all of it to just flow. I got ample of clarity on the kind of company that I wish to work for, my life’s purpose, my friendships, my relationships, the mistakes I had made, the lessons I had learnt, the bridges that I wished to mend, the burdens that I wished to lift off, so much mental work just happened for me. I didn’t need to go for vipasana, or need the sound of the waves or the natural sounds of the trees to unfold my mind. During the course of my regular day, in the middle of the 4–5 hour work-day, whilst being “locked down” it home, it all just came to me. It was just that simple. Writing, expression — I had forgotten about even feeling anything, let alone give any sound advice to anyone. Someone once asked me to conserve my energy and not beat my head against the wall that doesn’t wish to be broken. I took it to heart and just somehow shut myself down. But thanks to all this introspection, the fluidity of my mind is loosening its viscosity slowly and steadily.

To sum it all — I just found time for myself!

Did any of this — even before the lockdown — require an unreasonable amount of money? Was money EVER the necessary medium for any of it? No. Then what are we all chasing?

Let’s imagine the world to be one big giant company. Each country as a separate department/ division. Each of them with their own set of systems and processes in place, that they have implemented and improved over decades of trials and errors. Like the ones that the great big industrial revolution brought about. Humans made machines to make life easier for them, so they could spend more time doing the other more important jobs/ living a far more luxurious/ effortless life. We built companies; we created jobs. We created the concept of 9–5 work days. We created the concept of reward with money (because by then it had proved to be the best barter). Companies paying each other to buy/ sell products that could help them; countries buying these products to help their armies, their banks, their infrastructures; countries traded with each other; exchanged things; one for the other; oil for pandas; loans for better roads. We created multiple loops of dependancies and yet made a world that seemed to be working well. However with just ONE root — money.

Then this lockdown happened. Most couldn’t do their designated tasks, supply chains stuck, manufacturing stuck, deliveries stuck. Everything just on a major standstill. So now what? This infinite loop of interdependence has just jammed everything.

Money (in the form of capitalism, so-called survival of the economy) is beginning to tip over the edge and is slowly showing its vices.

We write books about the work-life balance, we hear authors and influencers talk about the tricks they follow to bring this about in their daily lives.

But how many of us have been able to implement this until this lockdown?

Isn’t working from home and maintaining this social distancing proving to be a boon for us? The elimination of bathing (sometimes), dressing up, travelling and investing all this energy in just getting to the work place, has conserved so much for us, that we can all do what we’ve craved to do for ourselves. People are up-skilling, learning new skills, which they otherwise would have put off for lack of time. Isn’t this “staying at home” good for us?

But then again — is this ever going to be permanent? Are we going to keep the lessons we learnt today with us and grow, or go back into the same work-life loop — to need one more virus to remind us to bring back this balance in our lives?

Or is this going to unravel a whole new set of imbalance that we will create for ourselves — out of fear, out of self preservation (to begin with, then out of habit), and eventually a new way of life? SOCIAL DISTANCING? Is that going to become the new normal? Will the millennials or the GEN X subconsciously begin to love this space more than required? Will they embrace this “alone-ness” over “socialising”? Will they begin to create subconscious “distances” between each other? Lesser calls, lesser hang outs, lesser physical meetings and contacts, lesser and lesser ways of all the things that make us human. And will all of this unravel a whole new race of unhappy, sad, depressed individuals?

Companies are already beginning to see the economic and resource benefits of letting people work from home and area already talking about moving 75% of their workforce home. Lesser human interactions, lesser coffee breaks, lesser pantry conversations, lesser lunch-break jokes. This will then trickle into the education system, lesser in-person classes, lesser playgrounds, lesser schools. Eventually the next generation will live life only virtually. Augmented realities and virtual realities are anyway taking over.

The scale is so fine.

The line is so thin.

Tipping over from one side to the other is just that easy.

What’s important is to stay detached — from money, from this new found sense of freedom. Why? So that we can let it last only till it serves its purpose, and then can discard it when we’re done.

I hope we know to “discard” social distancing when the time is right.

I hope we know to bring about a permanent balance in our lives in terms of work (i.e. the medium that we choose to help us fulfil our life’s desires) and life (i.e. actually taking the time of fulfilling those desires GUILT FREE) now that we know how to really do it.