Home quarantine is difficult for all those who have busy social lives and do not have time to be by themselves or next to their families. So going through this experience which suddenly happened and changed everything will not be easy for them.
After the global outbreak of the Coronavirus, home quarantine was like a short vacation for me. It was a break from my life which was busy with work and social life. The best thing about quarantine is that I became involved with matters which I did not do before and had hoped to do amid my busy life. I had to spend as much time as possible at home.
Most people have certain hobbies they can do, but the pressures of work, studying, or even spending life with family and being busy compel the person to forget about these hobbies. During quarantine, I had large amounts of time to practice my hobbies, such as “reading novels”. It is a useful hobby to break my boredom and change my routine during the lockdown. Moreover, reading helps me forget the unpleasant reality for some time. I’m a fan of reading since it is the primary key to self-development, gaining knowledge about life and understanding things, people and the universe around me. Therefore, Coronavirus lockdown was an opportunity for me to return to reading and enjoy books again.
Quarantine does not mean loneliness or isolation from people, because technology enabled me to stay in constant communication with my relatives and friends. I can always allocate some time to call or chat or even make video calls via Messenger or Whatsapp or other applications. This period allowed me to have fun with my friends playing different games like “Jawaker, Fifa, Fortnite,...”. Besides playing singleplayer or multiplayer games on PS4 which helps me kill time. Also, watching movies has been one of the most interesting activities for this period, where staying and enjoying your time at home is the best thing we can do. So I have been watching new movies and series on Netflix during the quarantine.
Since I’m an employee, I used to wake up at 7 am and sleep at 1 am before the quarantine. So the first thing I did during the vacation was satisfying my sleeping needs as I used to complain about the lack of sleep I was experiencing before. However, I must work even during the imposed lockdown, so I started working remotely since it is the most effective and productive way of work under these circumstances. That way was beyond what employers expected because it is eco-friendly, timesaver and ultimately avoids us from having those endless meetings by exchanging emails instead. I was able to continue my work easily and balance between work and life. During home quarantine, I used many online services which helped me in working from home, remote education, benefitting from the educational content on Youtube, learning new skills or reading several ebooks.
I also spent time by myself contemplating my life before home quarantine and remembering the weaknesses and obstacles that block my success. Sometimes, when you are too busy with life issues, you make mistakes but cannot discover its reasons. However, you can know what caused these mistakes if you sit back, relax and remember the incidents. Thus, I did so and brought an agenda to write my old mistakes on it and make plans for the post-Corona period.
During quarantine, I was able to take care of myself and my health by breaking many bad habits and replacing them with good ones. For example, I started practising sports after I used to argue about not having enough time for that and put it on my plans when I return to my normal life after quarantine ends.
Moreover, I spent long periods with my family because quarantine was my special chance to spend precious time with family talking and expressing our opinions. I have always been looking for family intimacy by participating in activities together. This strongly helps in relieving stress among family members and strengthens its cohesion and resilience.
Finally, quarantine for me was a period to review my thoughts, rest my mind and start reflecting on and correcting my old mistakes in diaries. Also, whenever I am stressed, I turn to God first to pray and share my fears. Thus, this period was a good opportunity to change my life to the better through my relationship with God and religion.
Mohammad Kanoun, 25, management, Lebanese living in Tripoli North Lebanon
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash