Staying in touch – COVID19 advantage

While we are all going through a self isolation routine, we definitely have more time at hand to do what we have not been doing very often.

One of such amazing things to do is to go through your contact list and call up the people who you have not been in touch with for so long but you wish you could connect. No, don’t use social media, give them a voice or video call. Whether it is your old friend you don’t talk to any more, or an old class mate, a neighbor you grew up playing with in the streets, your sports mate, your teachers, relatives, bus driver, the ex-coworker you liked or may be someone you traveled with, just go ahead and give them a call.

Who to call?

Obviously start with your parents, your elders, your family and near friends. It’s one amazing phase we are going through that you can find time to regularly call them and discuss whatever you want. Check the time zone and call those oversees friends and family as well.

Please note, watching news and social media could be distressing especially for the elder ones (and yes for everyone in general too) so it is a good get away when you talk to them over a voice or video call.

You can use any of the usual video/audio call mechanisms, every one is using things like Whats-app, Skype, Facebook, Face-time, Zoom, anything that works for the other party, go get in touch and bring back some smiles.

Old friends

This is amazing personal experience, we planned a friends’ get together and ended up talking over a video call, a group call of around 10 friends from school, some of them I’ve not met in person or even talked online in last 20 years or so. What a wonderful feeling to be in just one (virtual) place talking about life, work, family, kids, anything.

Schedule it

Frequently calling your loved ones and family is a good idea. May be call your sister or your parents or your friend every day or two, not a bad idea. We all use calendars and reminders for work, why not set a reminder for a frequent call that we should make, not for any reason, but just to show your face and see others how they’re doing.

Let’s call

So let’s call, use your favorite app and call now. Don’t mind if nobody picks up, you’ll definitely get a callback or two if you tried to call a few of them.

Don’t leave out texting

You should never under estimate the power of a text message (or a whats-app message). It’s just the advent and growth of group chats that is killing the beauty.

So when you plan to check on a friend or a family member, drop them a personal text, type it separately crafted for the person himself/herself adding a personal touch. No problem sharing a random joke or a meme every now and then but a personal text with your specific question or greetings is much more important.

Filter out what you communicate

Bottom line, no matter you send text or call, make sure your conversation should talk less about negativity, pain or suffering, talk more about happiness, good times, optimism and hope. There’s already a lot of negativity everywhere else, let’s bring smiles on some faces. Let’s go.

This post is part of a list that I call “The Positives of COVID19“.