Life simply creates circumstances, its neither good or bad. It just simply is! We can see these circumstances as adversity or opportunity. That's a choice we as human beings get to make.
I am Neha. I am from India and these are my thoughts on the Quarantine and its challenges. I found the post by @anomadsoul on “My quarantine goals and challenges” very inspiring. Thank you for doing this. It’s a wonderful idea to use a platform to help its users evolve thus setting the stage for an evolution of the platform itself. A contest like this definitely sets the tone. However, what I found more interesting was the bit on Newton. While it may or may not be true, but its anecdotal value as a tool of inspiration is absolute. We can see this period of isolation as a break from the rat race and use it to evolve or we can see this as imprisonment and lose our collective shit!
I choose to learn and evolve and honestly not all of the incentive to do so comes from high sounding morals but more from looming economic compulsions which Sajan (my husband) and I foresee. The economies are going to be in a bad shape for the next 12-18 months.
So, while I wanted to respond and write my challenges and goals as soon as I saw the post I held back because I wanted to reflect a bit before I penned down my thoughts. After a good night's sleep here goes my thoughts.
Challenges
To be honest it’s impossible to not think about the economic impact, especially if one has a family. Many industries which essentially catered to a very social world will collapse and many services which facilitate or even encourage social distancing will flourish. E.g. People may choose to shop online instead of more social environments such as malls or people may prefer electronic means of exchanging value instead of cash. In India we can see the evidence, Thanks to Whatsapp forwards about currency notes being infected with Covid-19 there seems to be a reluctance on part of many people to handle cash and would prefer digital payment via apps such as google pay etc.
In our case skill is not an issue. We have both dedicated our lives to pursue as many experiences as we can, as a result, we have a lot of skills between the both of us. Between the both of us we have had professional careers in IT, Branding, Digital Marketing, Advertising, Film Making and Teaching. We speak multiple languages, I have artistic and culinary skills, Sajan is into fitness, martial arts, yoga and Reiki. He is also a Soft Skills trainer, communication workshops, Ayurveda and Naturopathy and so on so forth! However, we have never ever managed to leverage these skills to create something for ourselves.
I have been happy with my Job and my husband is into digital content and ad film production. This gave us money to live and beyond that we have never really bothered to do anything, except have a good time.
But the good times don’t last, forever do they?
Our challenge is going to be able to leverage the skills we already have to create something of value, both to us and the world around.
Goals
I have had a few goals when this lockdown began. We have had some success with respect to them over the last few days. However, some of the big-ticket items are still pending.
We don’t see the current situation going away anytime soon and anticipate the lockdown to continue. As of now the lockdown in India is complete and will be in force till 14th of April. However, the trajectory of the infections seems to indicate that we may have to continue the lockdown till end of April. We expect to hear from the government closer to 14th of April on this subject. That gives us some time to work on them.
Let’s me list some of the goals that I have achieved to an extent
1- Staying Sane while being locked-up – WIP :P
2- Blog about my cooking on Hive
3- Blog about my travels
4- Blog about my Art
5- Meditation – Wanted to get back to it. Have been at it for past 21 days.
6- Takeover my husband’s then Steem- Now Hive, account - Done – Muwahahahahaha !
Here are some goals we both are working on achieving.
1- I am working on reviving my travel blog www.jauntlife.com Its currently offline but do keep an eye on it 😉
I used to have a travel blog with a host of travel resources. At some point as other areas of life bloomed I kind of let go of this. However, this time around I don’t have anyone to make it for me.
I am doing it myself. This means I have to pick up Wordpress. Thankfully Sajan is familiar with Wordpress. I am also picking Wordpress online. I hope to have it up and running by the end of this week. Finishing a site like that will take a couple of months. Especially to completely populate it with content. However, if I manage to finish the wordpress work and get it online then I know I will keep up with the weekly workload. On the blockchain we will look to collaborate with entities like @travelfeed and others. Currently I give about 4 hours everyday on the blockchain. And I give around 5 hours to the website. I intend to keep this up.
I will have the site online by 12th of April 2020. That’s my dare to myself
2- Sajan is working on a soft skills channel. We are looking at both @dtube and youtube. We are currently in the process of getting the content ready. We are the scripting stage of various aspects of soft skills. Then we will shoot the videos and then there is editing and graphics. The work is already on. We expect to start uploading the videos by 14th of April. This will have a bit of trial and error. We will experiment with various modes of delivery to see which works best for audiences before we settle on a template. He puts in 8 hours a day. Intends to keep it up.
We will have lot of fun doing this. We will make it as interesting as possible and we will challenge ourselves in every possible way. My greatest enemy in this fight will be my own limitations and I look forward to a much-deserved victory. In short, I am going to rock this!
It’s not every day the world shuts down. The mighty human brought down to its knees by a bug we can’t even see with the naked eye. Generations to come will scarce believe that a time like this once existed when the entire world was forced to shut down. Kids will learn this in their school books. Just like we did about events like the Plague and the Crusades, WW1 and WW2. We are the history that future generations will study about. We are lucky in an ironic way to be a part of it.
I wish the best of luck to everyone who wishes to use these lockdown days as an opportunity to grow.If you like our content do follow @sajannair.
Hugs
Neha
Posted on twitter as well