In the USA and world over, we are in the thick of things with COVID19. We as a family have been staying home for the past 19 days!! That is the longest that I had stayed at home or at a place without much movement. I did go out for groceries and for food pick-up at local restaurants. As a family, we had not collectively traveled out. This is a moment of self isolation, soul searching, and spiritual thinking.
There are a few things that give me positive hopes to inspire dreams of the future. For one thing I am regularly doing physical exercises – at least 30 minutes, if not longer. I get extra family time. For example, I get to play with my 10 year old son every day – we started with football with burpees, expanded it to throw and catch (American) football outside, and basketball.
In addition, we also get to build things. Just last Saturday we assembled our first basketball hoop over 8 hours with 7 breaks in the middle. It was a large lego project with nearly 150 parts of 60 part types. The system was to take two adults to assemble over 4-6 hours. We are very glad to manage the assembly with the limited tools we had (including our trash and recycle cans as the sawhorse for assembly). In times of crisis and problems we discover new strengths and creativity comes out.
A third activity that is top on the list is: reading. I get to read a lot of the books and news. While some of it is not helpful because of repetitive nature, still there is more value overall. Today I was reading an article about Urban Resilience in the COVID19 situation. Cities and Urban areas are unique in the modern world. By bringing the people together in higher densities, there is a natural way to optimize the world to provide work, arts, sports, entertainment, education, etc., in a seemingly economical way. This had worked very well until this pandemic situation. The author of the article talks about positive things that came out of the lessons learnt during this COVID19 situation.
Besides the solitary exercises I also get to speak with a variety of people. Particularly since I am exploring the possibilities of the future, there is more to learn. I speak with startup founders looking to reshape ideas and execution in their companies. I speak with non-profit forums on efforts they are taking to survive through this crisis. I speak with friends and family to stay in touch and share notes. All these have helped me to gain perspective and stability during these moments of crisis.
Overall the “new normal” is providing a significant learning and reconnection opportunity for me. I anticipate to tide through the tough situation we face. I believe in the resiliency of individuals and community to bounce back well in the coming days.
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