It’s as simple as this

Humans have an impertinent nature. It is a given fact. We don’t like to be told what to do and most often than not we will do the exact opposite of what you tell us. Because we can. And we feel superior by doing so. As if disrespecting you or regulations will give us impotency and show that we do not ‘bow down’ to others. That’s the mentality.

Similarly, during the time of Coronavirus, when the entire world has shut down and streets everywhere are empty, we have been ordered to #StayHome to #StaySafe. Yet, there are those – a surprisingly large number of them – who don’t comply because they don’t want to; because they are bored at home; because “they’re fine”.

People who work from home long before it became a trending necessity, know very well what it feels like to spend your entire day in the same space. But there is always something to do. If you don’t work, you can find things to keep you occupied and creative. It’s your time to relax, learn, read, watch movies, fix your home and garden, invest time in yourself. For the sake of it, all we’ve been asked to do is sit on our couch to #SaveLives. Why is this so difficult to understand?

There are so many people out there still working. They go to their jobs daily, with the constant risk of contracting the virus, simply to keep the world still moving. Many of them would very much like to simply stay home. Like we’re supposed to be doing.

Restrict your movements. You don’t need to be outside “exercising” every day, when you’ve never done that so far. The sooner we all comply, the sooner we will all be able to continue our lives. It’s as simple as that.

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Maintaining continuity

A good advice to survive a dramatic change in routine is to maintain continuity in your daily habits. Wake up early, stick to meal times, exercise. It’ll all pass. Just make the best of it.

Also part of Weekend Writing Prompt #150

Here’s your chance

©Jeff Arnold

“You’ve always wondered what you’d do if you had time and were at home”.

“Well, here’s your chance”.

She opened the door. His home-office was rearranged so that his desk was right beneath the window looking into the back garden. There was an old typewriter strategically placed in the middle. He had told her of how the dream of becoming a writer began when he first saw his grandfather typing on one of these. But dreams always got delayed due to some other priority.

“After all,” she added, “when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote King Lear”.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

When all this shall pass

© MCD

For you to see the stars, you need a dark sky. That is the only allegory suitable to describe how to remain optimistic and patient in order to see the positive in a gloomy and tragic situation.

“Staying positive, doesn’t mean you have to be happy all the time. It means that even on hard days you know that better ones are coming”. That is something we need to remember now more than ever.

Because around the globe, restrictions of movement, closed borders, bans on public gatherings etc, are all commonplace at the moment. We are all self-isolated….together. We are all in this together. Most of us are called to fight an invisible enemy in an unprecedented war from our couch. Others are on the frontline working night and day in hospitals, witnessing the painful consequences first-hand. All we are called to do is to #StayHome, #StaySafe, so they can help us out of this.

Viewed in another perspective, the whole world is frozen at the moment. As if someone pushed a ‘pause’ button and ‘regular’ life simply stopped. For how long, nobody really knows.

Sometimes even the hardships serve for a higher purpose. It is during the hard times that we realise how strong we truly are. (“We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test” – Isabel Allende) And we acknowledge what truly matters. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has proven that everything around us is so temporary. Things we revolved our lives around: our work, gym, cafes, malls, cinemas, society itself, have all become irrelevant as we are now learning for weeks to live without them. It has taught us that we are so technologically advanced we can actually work from home, i.e. anywhere, and we can remain more connected than we believe. It is in our own homes and families in the end that we will remain safe. We learn that distance cannot keep emotions away.

But when all this shall pass – because it will – we will come out reborn, we will have learnt (hopefully) to not take anything for granted, to appreciate everything and everyone we have more. Because it is in this distance and isolation that friendships will be tested and relationships will either be reinforced or shattered.

Like Victor Hugo said, “even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise”. Every day is a lesson: the good days offer happiness and the bad ones, experience.

No storm lasts forever. But if we can stay positive in a negative situation, we win. It is up to us how to manage the situation we are in. “Fear has two meanings: Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise. The choice is yours”.

We can’t change how all this started. But we can change how we deal with it from now on. And certainly what we will learn out of it. To become a bit more humane, empathetic and less selfish. To value the little things in life. To be kind to everything that is alive. And above all, to wash our hands.

A tune that lasts forever

©J Hardy Carroll

She remembered it fondly. How she anticipated their first date. He had announced it to her with a paper plane that flew straight towards her. It was their way of communicating. She was walking on air all morning.

He took her to a diner that had just opened and was the talk of the town. The food was savoury. But that wasn’t what won her over; it was the song he chose on the jukebox and how he picked her up to dance rock n’ roll to what thereafter became their tune.

It was their time. And it became forever.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Social relationships under self-isolation

It’s interesting to witness how a state-imposed self-isolation affects our social relationships. Funny memes are going viral in that, during just the first few days of quarantine due to coronavirus (COVID-19), people are rediscovering their homes and the people in them.

If we choose to remain optimistic and see the positive in every situation – even this one – we may realise that this is an opportunity to take a pause and allow the world itself to breathe. By staying home, the decrease of environmental and atmospheric pollution is already evident. But there is more to that: we can take a break from the routine we keep complaining about and rediscover ourselves and the people around us. We live in a world where we can communicate with everyone / anyone anywhere at the click of a button, we can work from home, view films and series, tour museums online, read books, go online for shopping. There are so many things available at our fingertips.

It is during this time that we acknowledge how important it is to have people around us who we can communicate with even if only via a digital chat. People who can keep us strong and positive, and with whom we can exchange useless information simply to keep each other distracted and busy enough to forget to despair that we are “stranded” at home.

Some of us are actually “stranded” in another country away from our families. And due to the closing of borders as tight precautionary measures we will have to wait for a few months it seems to be able to hold them again. Because via videochat we can see each other every day and check-up on each other.

This is the time to realise that we can never tell what the future holds. Even if we plan things, they may not turn out the way we hope.

Most of all, we are given a chance to acknowledge all the things we take for granted and don’t appreciate. First of all our health and the time we have with our loved ones.

Let’s seize this opportunity to stay home, stay strong, stay safe, and keep our families and friends safe too.

Nothing lasts forever. Not even this.

Spring lockdown

©Ceayr

It was the warmest day spring had brought so far, with cloudless skies and a light breeze, everything seemed to emit positive vibes.

But in reality, the city was in lockdown. Trying to fight a threat as serious as any war or even worse than anything it had been called to face during its history, the entire country was prompted to stay at home, to avoid contact as much as possible, and to keep clean and safe to avoid a deadly virus.

Twenty years in the 21^st century, despite all our advancements, we’re teaching people how to wash their hands.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Why dance?

©MCD

“So, why do you dance?”

He had been asked many interview questions since his career gained an upward path, but this was by far the most intimate one. It reached right into his soul, past his life experiences, his childhood dreams and wishes, his ambitions and desires. It was the essence of who he was.

“There are so many reasons why,” he began. The emotional charge was already apparent in his eyes and in the tone of his voice that suddenly became softer and quieter.

“I dance because it makes me feel alive. Feeling my body in motion, makes me feel like I’m doing something right, that I’m allowed to experiment in every dimension with every part of my being. All a dancer needs to do is close his eyes and feel the music”.

“I dance because I’m happy, or I’m sad, or I’m angry…I feel through dance. It’s my way of expression. But it is also of healing. I always feel better after I dance”.

“I feel graceful and free when I dance,” he continued. “I feel my aura becoming lighter and brighter and this also helps me culturally and socially connect with others. I feel I am becoming a better person when I dance. And I like that version of me”.

“Dancing is also a way to escape everything that is troubling your mind at the moment. It’s great therapy for the mind and it certainly keeps you active and fit. It is a fun way to exercise and offers many more benefits that are first apparent. All you need to do is try it for yourself and you’ll be convinced”.

The interviewer stared straight into his eyes. She had never received such an honest and long response before.

And, of course, she was now eager for her first dance lesson.  

Things are simple

“Not everything has to be so complicated,” she said, thinking out loud.

Female and male brains did not function the same way. This was a gender chasm that was difficult to bridge.

What seemed common logic to one, was not so for the other, and this led to many misunderstandings and consequent quarrelling, no matter what the relationship the two genders shared.

“Why do they always perplex things?” she asked her friend.

“It’s as simple as this: if you want to do something, then act like it, and do it”.

Also part of Weekend Writing Prompt #147

Social markets

©Roger Bultot

It is said you can learn a lot from a country and a society if you stroll through its markets. And that’s what she always did when she visited a new place.

But this time it was different.

She wasn’t visiting.

She was there forcefully, without even having the option to choose. There was no alternative. That’s what she was told.

The market was not a hospitable place, nor one you enjoyed walking through.

Merchants were trying to rip-off their potential clients, and small children were deftly trying to steal whatever they could without being caught.

‘Ideal’, she exhaled, despaired.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers