Message for Corona Times
(Originally written on 30th March 2020 for Nerd 9 Community Group)
Dear Friends/Nerds,
Though I find everyone is adult enough, yet I find it responsible to raise the voice and concern that next 3 weeks could be extremely crucial with supplies, emotional well being, personal relationships, health (other than covid) as we are entering in a phase with US riding the covid infection wave up … media will be filled with hysterical stories of hollywood style storytelling, disputing every right or good information, services outage at some parts of the world, incidents of looting and theft. Though you may have concerns around anger, anxiety, I suggest you to engage yourself into mentally calming pursuits like 10 mins meditation once in morning and evening again (at least ) and overall take care of yourself and next ones to you responsibly and lovingly. A positive thought play in your mind or an attitude of gratitude prayer could be a useful thing to recite upon. There are extremely underprivileged people out there in the world who could fear facing the worst apocalyptic moment unless the course is changed by overall human race developing immunity to such outbreaks
And if you are right now somewhere locked up inside with someone you don’t want to be with, have patience this is not worst, but mentally condition yourself to be more forgiving and stoic, trust me this will not just help now but later also it will get over soon inside your head than you expect
And if you are missing your loved ones with whom you cannot be right now due to travel restrictions, keep the communication alive, if you are used to calling and talking ad hoc, it is time you put this on your daily calendar on an agreed time. Keep them informed that you care and will continue to care despite if call or internet outage happens for some duration
Also good exercise would be to get to know your neighbours, not by insisting visiting them but maybe my writing hand written notes and putting them under their door ( not the scary stuff, but tell you are next door and you are doing good and they can count on you and leave your phone number or chat id on that paper), you may get a response back or may not, but you have done your part of socializing, but don’t seek dopamine here by visiting all the doors and expecting responses ;)
Invest in immunity: You might be spotting good investment opportunities, and yes there are ( look for hugely undervalued bank stocks in coming 2 months, coz recovery and bull run is always led by banking stocks ), but more importantly invest in immunity for yourself. Ginger, Turmeric, Garlic in everyday diet along with suitable supplements should be priority, but if that runs out of stock, deep breathing techniques, bellow breathing, should be good practices to build your healthy lungs and everything that builds up immunity
Planning further: While it may be good idea to keep yourself rejuvenated with future travel plans, but please keep in mind that this was almost like 9/11 moment and it will have lasting impact on how we travel, the concept of nation states, borders, plus extreme loss of privacy by governments getting super powers to track individuals and assembly of people, such things will have gruesome impacts on future society building where multiple ethnicities would be involved in a varied economic status spectrum. Maybe spend this time, to think, how would you innovate personal freedom and individual liberties for one and others ? A Silva meditation around Telepathic communication with close friends which nobody can wiretap, ha ha that could be one wild idea to start thinking about
Extending hobbies/passions: Two friends of mine ordered 3D printers (not to print condoms they say, but to try more creativity ), another two ordered gaming consoles which were in their wishlist for ages, few signed for new language courses online, or even piano lessons on Udemy and Guitar lessons on Youtube. This could be one such time to rethink re-evaluate minimalism and go for what you like to explore and try out. I m hosting events for sometime by exploring people’s minds, so I ordered a podcast mike this time, and went thru a course on effective webinars and design thinking this time. There are plenty of online courses which have gone free now, IBM’s design thinking course and curriculum is just one of them
Upskill yourself: Not because you have to as part of some rat race, but it is time to set aside current skills and pick some new ones. Plenty of online resources yes, but more options available in terms of evaluation, iterating yourself, picking right courseware, delivery mediums, and pace. The stuff you always heard others saying about reading 25 books a year, is now very much possible too. And if you can storytell a bit more, no matter if you are with impatient child or partner, you can engage them along in your up-skilling journey as well
Flashback before Flash forward: There must be some movie or set of movies that you watched in your formative years and have had an impact on you. By the associative memory principles, watching that movie now will also bring back you memories of that time and age how you use to think , evaluate, and reason yourself. This could be excellent time to get to know yourself bit more better by simple exercise like that, and once your have it figured out, you can choose what part to nurture more, and what to let go of yourself (easier said than done)
Remember that there are three pillars of you being an extraordinary human being, which we call NERD in our community while you must be evaluating something from above writing by now:
1. REASON — The power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements logically
2. PURPOSE — Having a certain congruent goal to match your reason
3. SELF ESTEEM — Your inviolate certainty that your mind is competent to think
And three precious expressions to echo for yourself, as we pass together these Corona times reflecting continuously
WHERE ARE YOU? …. HERE!
WHAT TIME IS IT? … NOW!
WHAT ARE YOU? … THIS MOMENT!
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