Blessing in Disguise

Photo Credit: https://jcwandemberg.medium.com/a-blessing-in-disguise-71ee2a9f8d8

World-over what we observe right now is ghost cities, panic, anxiety, loneliness and adjusting to the new ways of working or be at home with lock downs. While we are taking the pledge to strictly follow “social distancing” and “staying at home” to help healthcare systems, it is equally important for us to learn from this catastrophic situation which can help us change the way we live for the rest of our life and what positive impact we can bring in other living beings to be in symphony with Mother Nature.

There is always an opportunity from any given situation if we take a moment to pause, reflect ourselves on how we reacted and what we could’ve done better or what this entire episode of pandemic is telling us to learn and adopt new ways of live. That is why I called it as “Blessing in Disguise” and I would like to talk on two important aspects the entire humanity can benefit from: Habits and Lifestyle

Habits:

Early in my career one of my boss told me if you want to make anything as a practice or habit you have to follow it for 21 consecutive days. It is ironical that many countries world over started with initial lock down of 3 weeks including India and UK for the entire population to get used to it as a best response to the given situation. Businesses across the world has accepted the new challenge and understood the “new normal” as they started picking up on this habit which can help them to withstand the long haul. If we do an analogy to a life of sports person, for example a cricketer, it is important for a batsman to get used to or be comfortable with his kit: pads, gloves, helmet and guard etc., to treat them as part of his body before he can score runs on the ground.   

For the majority of people, staying at home working or not working it is important to pick a habit and pursue it for 21 days. You can look at your hobbies as starting point which were left behind in your busy schedules: it can be cooking, poetry, reading, blogging, gardening, music, signing, drawing, painting, home décor and many more. If you are an introvert there is no better time than now to start talking to people to open up and change your personality. A simple tip to pursue it for 21 days is pick up a time outside of working hours and distraction from kids etc., and ensure to keep that 15 min or 30 min for yourself. As many have already said if you cannot go out go within to realise your potential with techniques like Yoga, meditation to feel fresh and energised for rest of the day. Now that we understood what it takes to follow a new habit lets now look at Lifestyle, another important aspect.

Life Style:

Until few weeks ago every one of us has a different and most unique life style, the way we start the day, the way we dress, the way we eat, the way we communicate with others, the way we sleep etc., With the new way of working or staying at home, I am sure most of us would have seen life style changes like different sleep patterns, time spent on social media, TV time, laziness, stressfulness etc., An important aspect that we wouldn’t have observed much is eating habits, we are not eating what we want rather we are now eating what we get.

By now most of us would’ve understood that Life is more important than Lifestyle and we have already adjusted to the new lifestyle. The difference is now we are forced to choose a lifestyle but it is not all that difficult without this situation to bring life into our rather boring and routine lifestyle if we start with the baby step of making it as habit or practice. But mind you it is easy to get carried away with just habits until you make it as lifestyle. If we take the same cricketer example, he can be in good form with his habits in getting used to sport kit, feeling comfortable with practice but it takes proper mind set to attain class with proper lifestyle changes, that is why they say "form is temporary class is permanent".  If you take 2 famous sports personalities Virat Kohli and Djokovic and how they remained at top of their sport for very long time, it is not only because of their skill which comes with practice but also the lifestyle change in their food habits to turn into Vegan diet understanding their problems with endurance and longevity.

Nobody would want you to be vegan or vegetarian right away but if you are thinking of what change at individual level you can do, then move towards more plant based diet gradually if you can, cutting with dairy products or cutting on steak to start with.   I know it is not easy giving up your daily morning cappuccino to a black coffer or black tea but start making it as a habit with 21 day trial before making lifestyle change. Also if you do a simple test of what it takes for a portion of Salad compared to a portion of Chicken in terms of resources needed to cook like water to clean & cook and energy to boil to right level of taste you would understand clearly and it is also scientifically proven that plant based food need less energy to digest than non-plant based.

There is a point of view that the COVID pandemic started with wet animal market in Wuhan and we have seen more of these before with the likes of swine flu and other animal based diseases leading to 100s of thousands of causalities. There is no better time than now to learn our lessons to start thinking on our habits and lifestyles in making changes with this 2 step process.  

We have seen across the world air quality is improving in metropolitan cities, animals coming on to the roads, chirpy little bird voices are heard more than factory alarms & transport noises, peacocks dancing on the roads, cleaner water bodies and free moving marine life in canals etc., We have been encroaching and exploiting the animals and birds forcing them to a life style in restricted places, we are now seeing the reverse happening to mankind while for other creatures it seems that life is returning back with free movement.  We wouldn’t be in a situation of breathlessness if we show more compassion towards Mother Nature and living in harmony with other creatures. It is definitely not impossible to bring balance and life into all of mankind along with all other living beings in this planet with little changes to habits and lifestyle in this difficult period and beyond for rest of the life.

On a closing note, it is easier said than done so I always believe practice before preach. On my part, I have been Vegan for past 4 months and have started professional reading at least 30 mins a day and uncovered 21 days continuous miles badge recently in one of my learning portals in my organisation. Stay positive and learn lessons from every given situation and be a change to pick a habit and follow up to make it as lifestyle!