It’s been almost a week in lockdown and there is so much uncertainty in air. Will I and million others be able to return to work, or return to our normal lives ever… many of us are even worried will my job be there in few months or not. Us millennials have never seen a challenge like this. For generations before us they had to go through world wars, starvation in major parts of the world and other adversities. But after 80’s we have seen many parts of the world prospering and also decline in violence overall. Don’t get me wrong, I am not oblivious to refugee crisis and all that’s happening in Syria and Yemen. But still if we look overall world has become a better place for many specially in Asia including India and China.
I do not recall a time when we had to cancel schools, offices and just live indoors from the time I have gained consciousness about things. In the absence of any adversity all my focus has been on having fun, living the life which is anyways hard and complex and working to grow ourselves more prosperous. Even nation states have prioritized economic growth over everything else before Covid-19. It’s now only they are putting economic growth aside and just focusing on self preservation. This would be probably the only time where we have willfully induced a recession, otherwise even in war times we have worked to grow our economy. We have pursued growth at all costs and jeopardized health of millions of young people by not finding enough leisure time to exercise and for our social needs. We also made cities too polluted and unlivable to have that density which is needed to support this mad growth. It’s time we do a retrospective if things can be done differently!
In my view we should consider this adversity as an opportunity and seize this moment. Specially for us millennials we have been openly criticized and some of that was fair but lot of it was just for generational differences. I think we will see affects of this virus in following six months to an year, it’s how we use this time will define our generation. We have been given this time to learn any new skill that we want to acquire, change careers, start living a healthy life, make choices about big life decisions like marriage, buying a home etc. Those of us who will be able to use this time wisely and build their character will come out as winner in post corona world, those who will squander this opportunity might find life even harder post corona. This is the biggest test for us along with climate change, I hope we survive this and come out as a better person in next few months!
Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.
Rose Kennedy