Disclaimer: These are my personal views. By the lottery of birth, I was born into a decent middle-class family and had minimal responsibilities at home. My point of view might be narrow and non-generalizable.
The Covid 19 pandemic changed everything. No one had expected anything like this would have ever happened. Social interactions got limited to video calls, jobs went entirely online, and wearing masks in public became a rule. Many lost their lives to the virus, and many others lost their means of livelihood. We have been stuck in our homes for quite a while now. This new way of living seems to be the new normal. It is here to stay. I wonder if it is really as bad as it seems to be. What are the positives coming out of this entire situation? In this article, I will try to put down the positives coming out of this pandemic.
I have been very fortunate as the pandemic has not affected my family much financially. We have been fit and healthy. Although we all contracted Covid last year, we recovered within a week at home without much difficulty. So maybe thinking about the good things is much easier for me. However, the lockdown sure did affect my mental health. I have spent a lot of time alone, not meeting people. I have been in situations where I felt very depressed, and I have spent hours being sad, wondering what if it had never happened. However, when I tried to think of reasons why this entire lockdown scenario was good, the debater inside me came up with some good arguments. Here are a few of them.
If the pandemic had never happened, I would have never got to spend so much time with my family. I would have stayed at my campus in Kanpur, my elder brother stayed in Pune, and my parents stayed back in Mumbai. I am sure this would have been the case with many of you as well. I don’t think once this all ends and I go back to my campus, it will ever be possible to spend such a long time with my family. It is so much easier to stay at home. You don’t have to worry about food, clothes, snacks or anything. You can focus completely on your work and study. Now I know this might not be true for everyone, but I am sure even you must have got some more time to love your family. Isn’t this a positive?
I had become thin and feeble when I was on campus for four months. I never liked mess food. Being at home during the pandemic has allowed me to eat healthily and maintain a diet to complement my workout. It must be true in your case as well. The more you stay at home, the lesser junk you eat and the healthier you are.
I would have never attended all the lectures. In the online mode of the semester, as they are uploaded to be watched later, I am at least able to go through all of them. The quality of lectures is the same. The professors who do not give good online lectures would not have given good lectures anyways. If anything, professors can check and improve lectures while recording. Many times in a real-time class, a couple of confusing remarks disrupt the flow of understanding completely. I no longer have to cycle from Hall 13 to L20 at 8 am to attend the lecture. Some people say it is difficult to ask doubts and interact with professors. I think interaction is useful only when the student is up to date with lectures. It is much easier to stay up to date in the online semester because you don’t have night outs till 6 in the morning or wingies to spend hours chatting. It does not affect me much because I am rarely up to date with the lectures to know enough to ask doubts. I don’t remember many people asking doubts and interacting in offline classes as well. As far as theoretical learning is concerned, the online mode has been much better for me.
It has become super easy in the online semester to score 8, 9 and 10 pointers if one is smart enough. No matter how much the professors try, there are always ways to get around and cheat in exams. Although there has been a drop in my academic performance in the online semesters as compared to the offline semester, I think this drop would have been even steeper if I had been on campus. If not, having online exams allows me to spend more time on stuff I really love doing, like robotics and debate. In conclusion, stress has definitely been lesser in the online semester.
That’s it. Maybe you have a couple of more reasons to think that the pandemic is not all that bad. I would love to hear them. If I were to start writing about why the pandemic is terrible, I could write a much longer article. But that would only spread negativity and pessimism. I hope thinking about these few reasons cheers you up!