Lockdown Reflections
Many people, myself included, perhaps view 2020 as a lost year. Memories that could have been formed and relationships that could have blossomed were seemingly cut short. Instead, a majority of us spent our days in our rooms, flats, houses, and apartments, with loved ones, or with flatmates. This is not to say that the latter prevents us from forming new memories and strengthening existing bonds but rather this is a year none of us were expecting.
But I was mistaken.
2020 was not a lost year, in fact, this has been one of the most transformative years in my lifetime. Solitude has taught me a lot about myself, my goals, and who I am as a person, but it has also illuminated some of the ways in which society is structured. We are all individual gears in the colossal clock known as society, but unlike gears who don’t get to choose their role in making a clock function, some of us are blessed to be in a position in which we are able to decide the life we want to live. And lockdown, with its inexhaustible amounts of time, has given many of us the opportunity to sit down and think.
I never truly appreciated how integral work is to the life of man. For it seems that without work, people truly are lost. How is it then, that many of us spend 8 hours a day working jobs we dislike or are impartial to when we know that is time we will never get back? Now understandably not everyone has the choice to choose what work they do, in many countries and for most of human history, humans worked for sustenance, we worked any job that allowed us to provide for ourselves and for our families. But in New Zealand, in 2020 many of us already have reached the tip of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. So why is it that even though many of us are given the opportunity to chase our dreams and do what we love, we still settle for complacency?
During the lockdown, I had more time to think about what I want to do with my life. Were most of my previous life choices subconscious? Rather than being a sailor carving my own path in the oceans, it seems as though I let the currents pull me to the same shore millions of other people my age end up in. I was so caught up in the last 20 years of my life that I rarely took the time to take a step back and truly think that every day spent is a day I’ll never get back.
I guess when we’re young, our environment influences us and drowns out our own inner voice most of the time. It could be because we’re scared of rejection, of failure, or of breaking out of the mould society has set for us. But isolation made me realize that the person I’m with most is,
me.
Regardless of the thoughts of society, your friends, your teachers, or your parents, in the end, we are stuck with ourselves, our inner voice is our best friend. Some people refer to our inner voice as our “heart”, hence the phrase “follow your heart”. However cliche it may be, lockdown made me realize that we do truly know ourselves best, and that true regret occurs when we disregard our true inner voice to follow the trajectory of others. Why should we waste mental energy thinking about what others think of us when you barely see them anyway? How many people did you think were your friends before lockdown and how many people have called you to see how you’re doing?
Before lockdown, if you felt empty, it was easier to fill the void with something else, an escape. It could be that you superficially spent time with friends rather than thinking about life itself, or maybe you went and worked your part-time job. And doing those things is perfectly fine, don’t get me wrong. But being in solitude gave us the opportunity to fill whatever void lies within ourselves. The void is firstly eliminated by loving yourself, and finding what it is that you will set out to achieve in the story of the life that you’re currently writing for yourself.
Lockdown has brought upon the opportunity of a spiritual and mental metamorphosis. We can’t choose the cards we’re dealt. We can choose how we play them.
