Reflections from Quarantine: How have I been since lockdown started?

By: IAWA Ambassador Milisi

What do you think of the statement “Patience is virtue?” I always saw it as a cliché and never really understood it until I encountered lockdown this year. To me this lockdown feels like the entire nation or maybe the world is locked: no one is allowed to see anyone, services, schools and universities are closed, only essential workers like doctors are working and the normal day to day activities an individual is used to are no more. This time of lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic has been difficult for me and everyone I know across the globe.

I have been learning that although I cannot control many things that happen in my life, it’s how I respond to them that matters. I did not know that in my first year of university I would be doing online learning without the help of anyone at home. I did not know that I would be obliged to stay at home and not go anywhere or meet up with my friends. Everything I usually do revolves around other human beings and now they only exist virtually. I believe that everyone in the world did not prepare for such a time in their life or knew that this would happen. With every millisecond that passes by I am accepting what has happened and I am constantly looking at alternatives to cope with my school work, health and well-being and to find tranquillity deep inside my heart despite everything. Every day I meditate through the bible verses, read self-help books if I have spare time and most importantly I am taking each day as it comes. I am taking this whole lockdown as a mission that I need to do well in.

This mission is a huge challenge and it has a high reward at the end. I know I can’t constantly focus on the fact that I am not going anywhere to get things done. So instead I give myself the challenge to stay indoors and study at the same time. I know that if I don’t pace myself on my school work and do chunks of work each day when my exams come I will fail. I tell myself this is like a “Hunger Games” where everyone is fighting for survival. I will not do badly in my studies because of self-isolation studying. There is someone out there doing their best with their work who might get the bursary that is paying my school fees and I definitely know that I will not lose this opportunity to get educated. I know that I am not a quitter but a fighter and in this time I fight to do exceptionally well in my upcoming exams. I plan every day to allocate time wisely for studying so I am not a grinding student who ends up burned out. I am following the president’s regulation about social distancing and quarantining myself - but what I don’t do is to sit thinking about this pandemic.

I see this time as an opportunity to fully learn self-dependence, a time to reflect on my life and the decisions I have made, to think more about my goals, to learn patience, discipline, and dedication and to bond with myself. I know this time will come to an end and when it does I will do all the things I used to do before corona virus came. When it does I will live my life to the fullest and that is what keeps me going: to know that it will be better in the end. There is always balance: I had to have abundantly less time to myself and infinite time to myself like now. I am a believer of good things in life: if something bad happens there is something good that will come out because everything in the universe works with balance and time. This is why we have night and day, winter and summer and happy times and sad times.