by : admin COVID19, General, Happiness, Internet, Social Networking

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“.

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by : admin COVID19, Happiness, Social Networking

More Family Time – COVID19 plus

While a pandemic hits the world, governments and individuals around the world call for a shut down and everyone is trying to stay home as much as possible. One of the benefit of this social isolation drive is actually increased social interaction with the loved ones you should always have more interaction with. Yes the people at your home.

With evolving lifestyles, we have stopped interacting enough with our family members and those we actually live with. Whether it is hectic work schedule, heavy work load from school, university giving tough time, or your other hobbies or activities, your family members are actually those you are least interacting with. It’s may be not because you don’t want to, but because you have not enough time to do so.

An opportunity

With this forced stay-at-home trend, which is healthy and beneficial for you and everyone else in the first place, it automatically brings an opportunity for you to spend some more quality time with your own family.

Pros and cons of social media

Social media platforms and online interaction being at the fingertip of everyone today, has a negative effect on your family time too, we already know that. We are more in touch with those who respond to our tweets or Facebook status regularly. We know more about people we are following on Instagram. This trend may continue here as well during the social isolation as well.

The best thing to do in this lock down is to improve on your habits and give up on your social media use frequency, not entirely but lets limit it. This will not only give you more family time, it will help with your mental health as well. Too much time on social media is just amplifying negative thoughts into everyone’s mind.

What to do at home?

I think I’ll also start listing and posting about ideas of indoor activities you should have at home. Those of us with younger kids are having a tougher time keeping them entertained but trust me, it is not going to be that tough. Think about the previous generations, a whole lot of people, generations and generations of them have grown up happy and healthy without digital entertainment, hanging out, fast food and amusement parks. These kids can do it for a few weeks too.

So start a set of indoor activities, play board games or cards with kids, make lego trails, learn to cook something new, go back to the good old books (yeah the paper books I’m talking about), pick up your camera and do some bird photography/watching from your window (don’t go out), grab an online course and learn something new, go for some indoor games like table tennis, watch some TV together (but not all day) and balance things well.

Balance is a must

Balance is a must, too much of everything is bad so it’s important to maintain a schedule for everyone. Get up on time, make sure everyone is working out, eating balanced diet, work life balance and yes the family time.

Bottom line

So my short suggestion, give more time to family, have more interaction with people at home and enjoy this time as long as it lasts. Trust me you’re going to miss these quarantine days once it is all over.

See you guys at the other side of this crazy time.

This article is part of a set of articles I call “The positives of COVID19“.

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