It has been about 4+ weeks since we have been working from home at Rakuten India. The current period we are going through is both unprecedented and challenging. I would like to share my experiences from these past few weeks and would love to hear from others as well.
As the famous saying goes “Every cloud has a silver lining”, here is the silver lining I am experiencing in connection with continued WFH due to the lockdown:
- Zero Commute: The non commute is a clear winner of course and I am not missing it for sure!
- Better planned days: The current situation has led me to better plan my day including hard stop at the end of the day and lunch time hours. I must say that the first week was pretty bad though with lunch and break times being all over the place and also the separation between `work time’ and `home time’ being merged into one and was pretty exhausting!
- Board games: Rediscovering the fun of playing board games like Scrabble and traditional ones with family. We are truly enjoying the playing part, although I must admit that I have lost my winning ways!
- Life skills for children: As a parent, I am happy to see our children becoming more responsible and with active participation in life skilling activities like mopping, cleaning utensils etc. which was otherwise handled by external help!
- Exercise regimen: While I was barely managing to exercise 2-3 times in a week while coming to the office, now I have earmarked time for exercise every day and most importantly doing it without fail!
- Birds chirping sounds: It had been a long time since we had heard the current variety and volume of bird chirping. Truly enjoying it!
- Culinary skills: I have started to bake (banana bread being my favourite) and no, not during office hours!:-) Our kids are not complaining for sure 😉
- Increased time for introspection: I am getting to do a fair share of self reflection and I truly hope to come out of this period, mentally and spiritually enriched!
- Catch-up on TV with old serials and getting to watch professionals from various walks of life: It has been great catching up with good old TV serials from the past with family. Over the weeks, I have been impressed with the selflessness with which health care professionals and others who have gone beyond their call of duty to help! This includes folks like Lav Agarwal (MHA) as well, going about their jobs including press briefings succinctly and with self–effacing demeanour
- Being grateful to what we have in life: Over the days with self reflection, I am glad to have been given to realise, acknowledge and appreciate all the things we have in our life which of course, one takes it for granted and there is an associated sense of entitlement, as well. While one can always pine for things to be better, we tend to overlook the fact that things could have been way worse!
As Rumi said “this too shall pass” and I truly believe we will and until then stay healthy, stay safe!
