As on date, our whole conscious mind is engaged with maximum negative and fearsome thoughts regarding Covid-19. All news media, social media and other sources are acting like scorers. All day long they are dealing with numbers. Numbers of diseased, affected, cured and that too zone wise, province wise and country wise. This is nothing but airing depression and negativity. And surprisingly most of us are so deeply interested to know and discuss all these facts that we are behaving like addicted to negativity. Well, being up to date is not a crime but feeding brain with some kind of information that increases restlessness and when in formation are scary, our mind goes defensive and depressed. Prolonged habit of entertaining depression may affect the psychological equilibrium badly & we may suffer from trauma or panic attack. Have you ever considered this dimension? If not, please do carefully to keep yourself in lighter condition. Otherwise you may find it very difficult to cope with the situation. To the extreme point of frustration, destructive habit starts which may lead to self harm. Isolation, price hike, pay cut, financial loss and no outdoor entertainment, all these facts have already tightened your mental health. Don’t accelerate the pressure speed. Optimum depression can dis balance your anatomy with irregular hormonal activities.
Let’s focus on future, enough of fear and backlogs. Like all nightmares, this bad patch will pass & we’ll be able to lead normal life like pre – Covid world. But I believe it’ll take more than a year or two to to get the access of normal living. Till then we’ve to live within certain limitations. We have to make some adjustments into our thinking pattern to accept newer ideas and concepts as normal. People are already calling it “NEW NORMAL”. It’s not so easy as to utter. A few psychological alternations needed to match your expectations with changed socioeconomic world. Let’s check out some accountable changes which we all have to make, accept and practice.
1. Variation in intimate relations. Well, no riddle here. We all have an intimate circle with whom we share our deepest emotions. Be it secret feelings or weirdest ideas, as long as we can’t share, we can’t feel calmness. That’s quite natural. Because we maintain sweetest match in mental frequency. When we share some stuffs, we discuss, we elaborate and ultimately land on some different inference. That’s the magic of intimate relation. We don’t use any resistance in accepting their words. Rather we try our best to open our learning intuitions consciously and marge foreign thoughts with own perceptions. But post Covid situation will be a bit different. As physical distancing will be a regular practice for all, we may lose some outdoor friends. Verbal interaction with exchange of body language make a different impact on brain and understanding. We can see, listen and feel each other. Whereas for long distance conversations can have a very small impact and that too for a small period of time. Slowly the impact starts to diminish and intimacy level becomes poor. But to keep self and family members safe, we’ll have to keep this process active for indefinite time. One day there may be a vaccine for this virus but who can guarantee that the gene will not mute to some other derivative and we will have to face Covid 20 or 21 or else? So there will be many “out of sight, out of mind cases”.
2. Hospitality redress. It’s not so tough. From past one or two decades, we became habituated with TV and cell phone. We have very little time to knock the next door or ask their whereabouts. Prior TV era was not like this. Then people of small localities were so deeply attached with each other that entire area seemed like a family. Till date there are many villages where this practice is continuing. Everyone knows each other by name/taste/emotion/choice/discomforts/food habits. Even in villages under below financial zone there are some unique practices. Habitats may be poor, may have lunch plate with minimum variety, some are facing shortage of fund and can’t even light their oven, still they get food from neighbors. Fellow feeling is very high in those areas. Bonding among them are so strong that they can’t imagine to let others spend a day with empty stomach. They may not have lavish bungalows to dwell, but they have big hearts made of pure gold. Random urbanizing had hampered this practice a lot. People in urban areas are not generally interested to get out of own vanity. Obviously exceptions are there. People with all sorts of competitive storms running in mind can’t feel other side of soft sentiments. Their hunger for more always keeps them in race. Slowly they become psychologically restless and annoyed with themselves. That’s why one out of every six person are affected by depression in towns and cities. Now time has come to change this lifestyle. Because there will be more than one reason for everyone that will drag them in more depressive zone. And selfless interactions with other souls will be an easiest tool to neutralize emotional pressure. We all go to reverse and adopt those forgotten habits again. We have to upgrade ourselves from neighbors to co-living animals. We have to open our door for each other to strengthen the humanity chain. Post Covid world will be very tough for those who prefers to live in tight cocoon of self imposed isolation.
3. Socialization and it’s subsequent risks. We are social animals. Not only we live in society, we spend whole life with such practice. We meet, greet and celebrate every small occasions collectively. There we get some more friends.that’s how our social periphery gets larger.actually we are emotionally dependent on others. We use our social connections in our good as well as bad times. But as this pandemic had claimed more than 2.5 lac lives throughout the globe, time has come to rethink about our intimacy and presence within shake hand distance. As long as there will be no definite remedy, we should change our social habits to protect ourselves as well as the whole society. Regular hygienic practices like washing hands frequently, using of full sleeve clothes, wearing face shields to prevent droplets while talking to others,, greet people without touch, sanitizing daily use props like watch, wallet, pen, tie pin, specs, ornaments, cell phones, not to spit on public place are essential practices we need to maintain in main course of living. And that too as basic instinct. People of Japan are habituated with such practices. Public washrooms there are equipped with disinfectant materials and every user cleans the wash basin after use. That’s their general consciousness. Actually kids there are being taught with self help hygienic activities like making own bed, cleaning own dormitory and toilet, washing daily usage clothes shoes and toys much before they start their traditional studies. This contagious disease taught all of us about the importance of hygiene and disadvantage of unnecessary touches. For an indefinite period of time we have to say no to all sorts of gathering to avoid asymptomatic carriers. We have to create a new definition of social life to maintain a healthy society.
4. Workplace mental health will be a big concern for most of the employees. As a massive economic slowdown and continuous cease work, almost all organizations are facing negative growth. Many of them are and will be going for mass layoff. Existing employees may experience temporary or permanent pay cut. For some people there will be a terrifying environment at office. More work pressure, longer schedule, lesser payment, zero increment, job threat and all sorts of horrible experiences may exhaust them emotionally. Also the new normal procedure of work from home may claim a few jobs in each concern. If there will be no office set up, there will be no housekeeping, canteen, sweepers, guards. These unorganized section will face the hardest time as they are from below educational category and unskilled. Also for upper level employees, there will be performance issue as well. Some may be shifted to no work no pay basis. There may be rotational process for engaging employees who are in Work From Home mode ( may be 3 days a week). This process will increase struggle for existence among employees. Moreover everyone needs a considerable time to replace workplace vibe and adjust with home based workstations. Average interaction rate with new faces will decrease significantly which can lead to boredom during working hour. Distraction possibility is more for them who lives in a small house/apartment as less privacy is on the card while doing office works. For office going people, there will be a lot of restrictions regarding gathering, meeting, attending seminars, group training. As long as there will be no accurate remedy of this contamination, workplace will be a public isolation arrangement. To cope with all these new practices is a big challenge for everyone.
5. The biggest problem for all will be to accept all these changes sportingly. We all have some definite psychological frame. When we experience some deviation, we tend to resist or protest or divert the newer ideas to our comfort zone of feelings. It’s quite natural. Surprisingly it lasts for a small period of time. When we accept something new as a regular practice, not everyone can make it happen smoothly and start a glorious beginning. For professionals, it’s do or die situation. They have no way out except accepting the new normal. Here a big question arises. How long Work From Home or maintaining newer guidelines in office will continue! Situation may change at any point of time. If it happens too early and organizations have to shift to some newer practices, it’ll be very tough to adjust and keep same pace at work. Productivity will be affected badly. This psychological jerks should be addressed properly and with patience. To me, employees should keep flexible expectations for unseen situations. They should make full use of time as and when they will get a chance to perform. Socially we all have to maintain a defensive distance from everyone irrespective of intimacy. We have to accept the fact that we should keep our self busy with own world mostly. That can keep us as well as society in safer side. Anyone of us may get infected but everyone doesn’t have the same immune. As the contamination speed is fast, our overconfidence can create a breathtaking situation for others. It’s better to reshuffle our thinking patterns and be a bit defensive and self centered.
6. The most dangerous phase for students and aspirants who are in mid twenties and early thirties trying to jump into professional arena. For a long time they have been preparing for a certain type of career. If it’s related to specially skilled jobs, they can keep a high hope for future. This pandemic had shown that we are living with a massive shortfall of Doctors, Nurses, Machine operators, Machines, Social Educators, and all other special category staffs. Specially for this type of situation when you’ve to isolated from others for at lest a fortnight. Imagine when a health worker found positive, the entire batch has to be removed from workplace. So, authority should keep a good efficient reserve bench to compensate the void and continue the emergency service. One day some vaccine of Covid-19 will be in hand but who can guarantee that Covid-20 will not occur! That’s where life is so unpredictable. We can’t see future. We only can arrange possible defense. After Covid-19 breakout, it’s true that countries with most advanced medical facilities also failed miserably to combat and put a brake on death toll. Students and aspirants who are not aiming skilled jobs/careers will have to rethink deeply about their plan and also the changes scenario of the planet. Options for employment will be much harder and thinner. Those who’re planning to start a new venture on his/her own capability will have to study more about possible options of revenue generation. For any sort of business, ultimate goal is to generate leads and convert those to productivity. On changed socioeconomic scenario of post Covid world, choices and preferences will be different with changed life style. So preparing good sales funnel and pipeline of prospective closure will be tough, but, gettable. My submission to all aspirants, please enrich yourself with some independent skills also so that you can chase your dream with variety of options. The more weapon in your armory, the bigger possibility to win the battle. Be tough & stay strong.
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