Making it Grind!!

When life demands a reset from its routine, it takes time to adjust. I am no exception to that. It took me a while to not react to my morning alarm that pushes me to wake-up early, go for my morning workouts, cook my breakfast, pack lunch for work, go through the sweaty commute to work in the blazing Indian summer, the post work catch up with colleagues/friends for a supper on Friday evenings, etc. All of it needed to pause before change imposed itself upon us.

This pandemic has been an unwelcome guest, prompting a long list of changes, as work from home (WFH) became the new normal. In the beginning I couldn’t stop criticizing; given that I like to dress up to work and connect with people face to face. Besides, I believed for a larger part of my professional life that I needed an office set-up to feel more accountable. But nature has its ways: either you welcome the change and adapt to it or be forced to do so. I chose the former and started to look at this “change” from a betterment perspective.

On the positive side, this change has brought me closer to my home and aging mother, who otherwise spent her time alone, with the only exception being weekends when I travelled back home. And then, there are a host of other things that I enjoy doing during this lockdown period. For instance, I can wear whatever I want to wear (can’t imagine going to work in my pajamas), I can pursue my interests of art/planting/baking with no rush and morning alarm blaring into my ears, Mom takes care of meals and she knows my favorites, go for grocery shopping over the weekends (with mask and hand gloves on – no more Swiggy/ Uber Eats delivery), and I feel more organized while hosting daily huddles with my leadership. I consciously make it a practice to stay more connected with each of my partners at regular intervals through group skype chats, phone calls, etc., checking in on their well-being. This move has also brought us closer as a team – with appreciation for each other’s personal and professional sensitivity.

And the best is, I have the much needed ‘me-time’, which was almost in-existential prior to the lockdown and WFH mandates.

 When our routines get messed up, we’re forced to adjust and make new ones on the spot. And, most of us are doing this as we go, too. We approach each day without any assurances of how the day will go.

 We’re playing everything by ear.

 As a result, it’s forcing many of us to think more creatively. To try new things or start doing those things that we’ve always wanted to try. And, this may be your opportunity to start letting your creative juices flow and to try your hand at new things.

It’s extremely telling where we’ve decided it’s OK to cut ourselves some slack, and where we seem to be continuing as if there weren’t a global crisis of historic proportions.

Yet for many of us, there is little choice but to put together a Rubik’s cube of a schedule that allows us to keep working as much as we did before.

As time passes, was approached by the Holy Month Of Ramadan.

Ramadan has landed smack-dab in the middle of the largest world-wide lockdown in modern history.

For a large part, I live alone in Pune ( India), still single and away from home and family. So the holy month of Ramadan is a time I’ve always looked forward to, when togetherness takes a life of its own. People from all walks of life come together in faith and hope, with observance of day-long fasting that swells with special prayers in mosques and Iftaar dinners that stretch into early hours. All of the norm “transformed with Coronavirus’ visit, complemented with lockdown and work from home,

But this was not to dampen the spirits; in fact, Ramadan took on a deeper meaning. What was once taken for granted, became moments to cherish.

For me, personally, I was able to surround myself with the love of my family – mom and brother – and the universe of facets that were still undiscovered or needing of my time and attention.

This moment of loneliness and spiritual togetherness has brought some of the life changing actions in me like:

*Much has been made of the drop in pollution. The decrease in noise and the increase in quiet. It is palpable. I can hear the flap of birds’ wings.

* Produced more clarity as to what is a necessity and unwanted

*Made us reconnect with our home, which was one house where we just saw a glimpse of home only over the weekend.

*Helped connect with the past & plan for the future, with a lifestyle changes you may want to keep after lockdown reopen. Perhaps you have an increased appreciation for quality time with family or self-care.

A friend told me the imperative to not touch his face finally helped him break a decades-old nail-biting habit. Another, a self-professed “big online shopper”, has gone cold turkey on luxury consumerism and hopes to never resume her blithe ordering of designer clothes again.

Even as some experiencing grief as the virus impacts their loved ones, or if their lives are relatively untouched by it, some will be facing isolation, boredom and a need for small joy. That’s where we end up seeing a lot of habit change, and the formation of new habits. It is also where we will almost be forced to reconsider the life they had prior. A lot of things will be streamlined or lost.

After the adjustment period follows a time of re-evaluation – essentially, a time in which we decide which behavioral changes we made during a crisis we will abandon, and which we will sustain.

None of us want to be in a situation of pandemic and lockdown. But situations such as these also bring out the best of humanity, the strength of a community, and an appreciation for the vulnerabilities of human life – it build resiliency.

We move on to make it work.....!!!