Seriously, Thank You Covid…

• Thank you for bringing about these intermittent lockdowns. Mental issues and loneliness aside, you help untidy people like me rediscover the simple pleasure of housework at the weekend. Vacuum-cleaning and floor-wiping are now the hippest exercises, while hanging my laundry feel almost like Zen Meditation. I also find things that “spark joy” going through my stack of old notebooks — Diary of an 18-year-old me, a crumpled love letter that has turned yellow, a 2014-dated grocery receipt whose ink is fading — Credible evidence of an earlier, youger, broker, and dumber time.
• Thank you for instilling into us the much-needed fiscal discipline that no budget planner has ever managed to do. With restaurants, pubs and bars closed, and travel distance restricted within 10km or so radius, our commute is now strictly for essential purposes like buying groceries and visiting the post office. Once a rare occasion, now many of us check our bank accounts and wonder “I have so much, where else can I spend?” A budget surplus consequently renders memes such as this irrelevant at best and inappropriate at worst.

• Thank you personally for sending people home to work and leave the office empty. Since some of us including myself live closeby, we prefer to come to work while having the whole space for ourselves. No distraction. No noise. No compulsory pleasantries. Plus exclusive access to corporate supplies of coffee, tea, cereals, juice, to name a few.
• Thank you, on a more sombre note, for putting us through the ultimate test of fortitude. Cut off from social sources of validation and from families overseas, we are forced to adapt and learn to deal with life’s ups and downs magnified by the uncertainy of a global pandemic. Personally, there are times when I feel overwhelmed and paralised by doubts and fears — the lingering sense that there is no point in doing anything, since nothing ever changes, nor does anyone ever give a care. In moments of low self-esteem, the grass tend to look greener on the other side, and the more often they do, the more insecure and depressed I feel. Yet, like you, I still get up every day, write down my goals, run another lap, cook some good food — to strive for something better and believe in myself. Because “there is only one security and when you’ve lost that security, you’ve lost everything you got. And that is the security of confidence in yourself- to be, to create, to make any position you want to make for yourself.” (LRH) Thank you Covid for reminding me of that truth.
• Finally, thank you for helping us appreciate the value of love, family and genuine friendship. In those deepest, darkest hours, these special people are always there, willing to help, to talk and to simply lend us a sympatheic ear. You are awesome and you know who you are!

Thanks, but no thanks, but seriously, thank you Covid.