Instead of Looking Down at Lockdown…. Look Beyond!

Instead of Looking Down at Lockdown…. Look Beyond! – While our routine hectic life was on, we all were complaining of lack of leisure time, quality time with family, being at work, traffic,… and so on. And now with the lockdown, we seem to be complaining more work in the house, spending time only with family… what does this mean? Anything that is forced upon us, that which is not out of our free-will, we tend to dislike it. Even if it means actually getting the opportunity to do what we always wanted to do.

Something to ponder – it’s not always work that is the actual problem – it might be the lack of freedom to do the work that we wanted to do and the way we wanted to do. But somehow we always ended up finding faults with our work life. This created a lot of frustration and dissatisfied life for many or rather most of the working population. To fend for the family, responsibility, to take of our expenses, societal pressure – these and many reasons such as these have led to take up jobs which they don’t like doing and dragged on for many years. And today, with the labour market and business going down, the same people are trying to desperately save their jobs. Many businesses are going to be affected which in turn is going to drastically impact many households. On one hand we have the anxiety of when will this lockdown get over and on the other hand we are worried how are we going to face the challenges of changed work-place.

People are seeking answers for questions like – Will my job exist? Will I be able to keep my job? Will my industry or company be able to survive this massive impact? Will get my next months’ salary? Will I be facing more targets and deadlines? Will I be able to cope up with the raised bar of performance and achievement? Questions or rather worries like these have started creeping in the minds of people.

The questions are obvious, but the answers are not. The answers will vary from person to person, from industry to industry and company to company. The cloud of uncertainty is not only on the employees but also on the employers.

At the risk of being called inhuman, many employers will need to make tough decisions to survive. Laying off employees [maybe the good ones], reducing salaries, expecting teams to work harder and more, pushing the targets, being very competitive and trying the captain the ship in turbulent times – are some of the issues of the other side. These aspects cannot be ignored.

There are no solutions right now, nor are there any neither formulae nor quick-fix remedies. Only time will tell how we all face this crisis. The most we all can do to save as much as we can in this situation is to accept that we all are in this together. We need to match our energies and efforts, be solution oriented, see how our industry / business can innovate in order to sail through, work and understand each other’s situation. Employers need to build in the faith and the vision and the employees will have to be a part of this vision and believe in their leaders.

Patience, perseverance and consistent efforts will be vital. We need to use our free will to work for the betterment –others and self too. It’s also time to rethink on our priorities, lifestyle and potential. Though currently ‘being positive’ is a dreaded word, but we need to be really positive in outlook post this crisis.

Till then, have faith, think ahead, improve yourself, and don’t look don’t at the lock down, instead look beyond and look up for the best!!