"IT WON'T GET THAT BAD"
In the beginning of 2020, I was out and about around SE Asia once again ready for another adventure, ready to create more. I was stoked! The word about the Coronavirus was merely a minor issue many wasn't too concerned about since it was only happening in China. I was in the middle of hashing out where I wanted to go next when all of a sudden, the 2,000+ passenger cruise ship in Japan were all over the news, the eerie videos of the lockdown from Wuhan went viral, travel bans had been posted, thermal cameras had been implemented at the airports, it was like a switch had been flipped within a day and things had gotten serious. COVID-19 had everyones attention. At the time, I didn't think it was going to get that bad. I figured that us humans are advanced enough to contain this thing but boy was I wrong. I then decided to book a flight back home to Canada just in time because the virus had finally gone worldwide. Italy, Spain, Russia, USA, the UK, and yes, even in Canada. Weeks after I got home, lockdown was in full effect in British Columbia. Vancouver, BC is a lively city and it's such a strange sight to see it empty and quiet. If you haven't seen my vlog yet when I took a stroll around the city during the lockdown, click HERE to see it. We were told to stay in, people were laid off, businesses were shut down, events around the city were cancelled, social distancing had become a thing and many were feeling restless at home... even I was feeling anxious, I felt not as motivated to create. That said, instead of focusing on the negative energy, I turned it around to see the light out of all this. I used the time to ponder about how I could use this very odd situation we're all in to improve and better myself overall. So here I am with a post about what the coronavirus pandemic is telling us. Validating my beliefs even more before all of thing happened.
1) WE'RE ALL CONNECTED & EQUAL
I really believe that all of us are connected in many ways and this pandemic proves just that. COVID-19 discriminates no one. Whether you're living in the slums, an individual running an entire nation, male,
female, gay, lesbian, white, black, latino, Christian, Muslim, young or old, it does not matter. This virus doesn't pick its victims based on race, religion, sexuality, age, or status for that matter. For once we are all equal. We are all vulnerable and can have our lives taken away from us. A virus that has no borders. One that can spread really fast. If one person is infected on one side of the world, another person can also experience the same virus on the opposite end. A well portrayed scenario of how connected we really are despite our distance. This pandemic also shows us how we need to work as a whole to overcome and propel to better things moving forward no matter our differences. Scientists, doctors, researchers in different parts of the world are all communicating to come up with a solution to combat the virus.
2) IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS
With the lockdown in place, we now value the little things. The freedom to just go take a walk out in the park, to interact with our family or friends, and the basic essentials we have access to simply survive such as food, water, the roof over our heads. These are some of the things we tend to take for granted. Now more than ever, we crave the experience to have this freedom and opportunity once again.
3) FIND A MEANINGFUL PURPOSE
With the unemployment rate drastically increasing here in North America, more people are now realizing how "stable" the positions they hold really are within a company. We can now ask ourselves, is what we're doing meaningful? Is it providing value? Is it helping another individual? Nurses, police officers and the rest of the front line workers are being praised during this odd time as opposed to movie stars or athletes. We're now cheering for them instead of an athlete scoring a goal or a celebrity walking across the stage to collect their award. Now is the time to find your purpose, something you're passionate about and something that would bring value to someones life. If you're happy with what you do working for someone else, then by all means, I have a lot of respect for you because it's something I can never do. If you're not happy with your job, now is the time to be on offense and find your purpose.
4) OUR PLANET HAS ITS LIMITS
Global warming has been a hot topic for quite some time now yet we continue to do things to speed up the harm we're causing to our planet. We cut down our trees, pollute the air we breathe in, contaminate the water we need, and we continue to proceed with other unethical activities to make the resources that brings life to every living organism in this planet scarce. Now that the whole world is put on hold, the water in the canals of Venice, Italy have gotten much clearer that fish, dolphins as well as swans have been spotted and birds are chirping in Wuhan, China because the air is not as heavily polluted. This is a testament as to how we need to re-evaluate our relationship with our planet.
5) STOP MISTREATING ANIMALS
There's a lot of theories and ideas as to how COVID-19 came about. In my opinion, this is the universe's way of helping us to rethink how we treat animals. The amount of illegal wildlife activities taking place around the world is remarkably insane. The wet markets (which is where the virus started) and the illegal poaching, all of this needs to be permanently banned. Animals are also living creatures that deserves to be treated with respect. As much as we need to re-evaluate our relationship with nature, we must do this with our wildlife as well.
6) OUR HEALTH IS IMPORTANT
Who would've thought that as little as washing our hands properly throughout the day could potentially prevent such a deadly virus from spreading. We live in a generation where time moves fast and for some reason we feel like we have to keep up with it just to get through life. We forget to do the little things revolving around personal and mental health. We eat our breakfast on our way to work just to make it in time for our shift, we feel like we're always pressed for time to do things for ourselves, or we just continuously scroll through our phones endlessly when we should be playing outside. We take our health for granted. Our time had been slowed down for now and we can use this to our advantage.
As we try to overcome this pandemic, what are some of the things you've learned? As always I'd love to hear from you so let me know your thoughts down below. In the meantime, I hope you and your loved ones are doing well during this time. Stay safe out there!