When Your Journey Is Your Teacher

Dear Readers,

As Mumbai becomes the new COVID hotspot, with spikes and surges in the number of COVID-positive cases outdoing each other daily, we know that not too much will change for us, if and when the lockdown eases. In fact, greater caution will need to be practiced once we are allowed to get out of our homes, which have so far proven to be our protective cocoons. 

 

Though our normal, everyday life has come to pretty much of a standstill, we continue our onward journey, trying to make the best of a very challenging situation. The month of June will be upon us in a couple of days, taking us into our fourth month of lockdown, which started on 25th March. As we look around us and as we look back, we realise the adage – ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey’, couldn’t have resonated any more strongly with us, than it does today. 

What a journey it’s been thus far! We’ve been battling so much more than just the pandemic! We’ve been up against the fear and uncertainties on multiple levels, about life and sustenance itself; we’ve had to unlearn the ludicrous and dangerous myths traveling the social media circuits about the horrors and cures for the COVID-19… and we have learnt that consuming raw garlic will not safeguard us from the coronavirus, unless we consider the pungent stench which has succeeded in keeping others at the required social distance. 

Even as we continue to grudgingly adapt to this new normal, there’s no denying that this journey has been a wonderful teacher, often bringing out the best of our humanity… whether it’s a renewed sense of respect for our healthcare professionals and even our house-help; or the humbling realisation of how fragile life is and how much more significant the human connect is; or how faith and prayer can comfort a terrified soul and sprout hope in a fearful heart; or giving us the opportunity to reflect and reconnect with ourselves and establish a more evolved, clearer perspective of what it is that really matters, where our priorities lie and what it is we want out of our lives. 

As important as getting to our destination is, where we can once again roam the earth fearlessly, without masks and sanitizers, it is the journey and all that we have learnt from it, that truly marks this extraordinary period in our lives. In fact, in keeping with the house-arrest situation we live in, we could take it a step further and say, it’s not just the destination or the journey, it’s as much the travel partner(s) you’re saddled with! 

There’s a long, winding road ahead of us before we safely make it home. Yes, it’s going to be a while before our COVID-kits hibernate in the remote recesses of our closets. But till then, let’s keep learning the wondrous lessons this journey still has in store, so we can arise out of this cataclysm as a wiser and better species. Moreover, you know what they say… when your journey is your teacher, you’re surely headed to ‘Destination Success’!

Have a good and safe weekend!

– Anahita