Hello Dear Readers,
I know I have been pretty dormant with my blog off late and whatever I wrote in the past few months was nothing more than few random scribbling of a depressed mind. As I write this, I am trying to be as cheerful as I can because let’s face it, we all can do with a bit of happiness in these morbid times. It has been more than 6 months since the pandemic of covid 19 has hit India and we are all locked up in our homes working from home, a lot of people have lost their jobs and are just sitting home idle trying to survive on their savings and while some don’t have savings either and have to just manage somehow, let’s face the fact that life is currently hard for EACH AND EVERYONE. There are sick people in the family, there are deaths, there is financial struggle, exploitation at work and lack of peace of mind so all of these things are going around and on top of that we hear the news that India has the largest number of covid 19 cases and the lowest GDP, there is hate in the world against the government and political leaders, people have lost tolerance for each other in such times and while people need to be more kind and empathetic, there is a general drain out with regard to empathy in the people, people are finding it hard to empathize and understand now that so much is going on in the country at a large scale and so much is going on with the people at a small scale, in short, no one is spared, everyone is suffering, be it kids, be it teenagers, college adults, doctors, teachers, parents, businessmen, women in general, the list is endless. Almost everyone I know is having mental breakdowns every now and then, I personally have breakdowns atleast once a week. There is tremendous pressure to be productive and fit. A lot of people have put on weight during lockdown and due to which there are emerging insecurities about body image issues and with gyms not opening, there is a surge in online fitness programs which people feel the need to attend, I, for once, followed a diet plan for a month, lost weight and when the program ended, gained even more weight, so it is extremely difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle or fitness routine in this pandemic. I saw a meme yesterday which said that “The pandemic has been so long that I got in and out of shape in these many months” and I could not help but laugh it off because that’s exactly what happened with me too, though I was already out of shape because of pandemic, thanks to emotional eating and huge consumption of cheesecake during depression days but then during the pandemic I lost 2kgs with a diet plan and then again put those back on and now my face is also fat and my arms are giving competition to my thighs but enough about me. I have no clue how people are motivated to exercise during these times, I am not even motivated to get up in the morning. Some nights I just wish please god make me die in my sleep so that I don’t have to wake up but then I guess I have work to do before I leave this world, so god is kind and lets me live. But whenever I talk to anyone and ask them how they are doing, there is a standard reply “kat rha hai time“, it seems that everyone has given up on joy and the idea of “living” the life. This pandemic has turned all of us into survivors and well, like everyone, I am also trying to survive. There is a bank of good days and bad days. There are productive days and days which are followed up by complete lethargy and sure work suffers during those days but then it balances out in productive times. What I have learnt in my six months of pandemic is that self love and self appreciation is really important for survival. Most of the times when we are busy in our lives, we have these small little milestones like “Boss approved of my work”, “A colleague appreciated me”, “I did my work before deadline”, “Someone called me pretty at the party I went to last week” and there is negative stuff too like politics in the workplace, stress etc but there is a routine, you wake up, you take a bath, you have to reach office on time, there is work on your desk, you get stuck in traffic, you come tired, you spend time with the family or watch tv, eat your dinner and go to sleep so it takes your mind off the little milestones and the negativity in your life, but pandemic took that sense of routine away with you and you have a lot of time to think and be with your self and even though there is work but you are not being watched and there is no set office environment, the lines between work and family time or time with oneself are blurred and this gives room to negative thoughts, this is where your self love and self appreciation will come in handy to keep you sane in times like these. You need to pat your back for little little things you do, like you made food for yourself or you cleaned your house or you studied and made a document or you painted or you wrote something instead of measuring your self worth by the amount of office work you got done. I am telling you all of this because this is something that I have experienced personally, I tend to measure my self worth by how much productive work I have done but then we need to normalize this fact as a society that times are tough and if you are just surviving that is enough, sure you need to work and earn and do stuff but sometimes it’s okay to break down, it’s okay to relax, it’s okay to reach out for help. We all shall make it, one day at a time.
Wishing you the best
Yours
Neha
Euphoric Being 