Should You Try to ‘Improve Yourself’ in Lockdown?
Amidst this COVID-19 crisis, everyone is in home quarantine and is doing something to kill the time. But instead of killing it, have you ever thought of making it productive. Productive in a sense, that one can always do something to achieve a better self. And this is the perfect time to develop your personality, clean your thoughts and make a better version of yourself.
Now, this question has different aspects for different people. Home-makers, salaried employees, kids, students, labourers etc. We live in a World where there is financial inequality. So, financially stable people are taking this lockdown by learning new skills and adapting new hobbies. But for those people who aren’t financially stable, this lockdown is not the right time to improve their skills or well being. ‘Salaried employees’ or ‘Students who are doing their internships’ are actually working more than their official working hours because of an increase in job lay-offs during this Corona Crisis. So, how is this “Learn new skills” justifiable for those people who barely have any time left to spend with family other than doing Office’s work. Since most of us are working from home, our Home-makers are definitely working more than what they usually used to do. So, this question is only valid in case of people who are free and doing nothing in this lockdown phase.
One consequence of Covid-19 is that we are now all being urged to hustle harder than ever. Isaac Newton discovered gravity and invented calculus while in quarantine, we are told. Shakespeare allegedly wrote King Lear on lockdown. Do these people have a point? Is quarantine the ONLY TIME TO WORK ON YOUR GOALS?
Everyone knows, if they are using their time well or they are wasting their time staying idle. Thus, we can’t generalise the need to up-skill yourself in this phase.
Therefore, instead of philosophizing the hustle to up-skill, if we leave this question as a choice to each individual, that would be better. Let each one of us draw a line between what is productive and what not. Let’s not generalize this too.
For some people who have been actively participating in the race of life to succeed, leaving all their leisure activities they used to do, just sleeping or chilling on Netflix is productive as it provides mental satisfaction and inner peace. For people who have been idle for a long time, learning new things or up-skilling can be considered as a productive task.
Hence, do whatever makes you happy. Be it cooking new dishes regularly, spending extra hours on office work, observing nature from your window, sipping coffee with netflix, reading books, sleeping extra hours. And let’s not forget the important message… DEFINE WHAT IS PRODUCTIVE FOR YOU.
NISHANT BANGA
Branch: IT – IV year