Observations about the COVID-19 pandemic: the good and the bad

There’s now a singular communal answer to when students are asked to describe a challenge they faced in their homework, when adults are asked to describe themselves and highlight their positive skills in their resumes or in job interviews, or even when individuals are making small talk: the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though I believe I was part of a luckier group of people to have a school that so quickly “rebooted” and added new software in order for students to continue their education with the same quality, I know that some individuals still struggled due to COVID in terms of their education. Boarding students in my high school and even my grade had to go back to their homes, and some of them didn’t have stable internet connections or an environment in which they could attend school or study. Individuals with elderly people in their homes essentially became afraid of living their lives, skipping out on plans or even on simple trips to the grocery shop that would normally allow them to have a bit of exercise and breathe fresh air. People stopped being able to socialize at school, at work or even anywhere outside.

What made me truly understand all these effects that the pandemic had on individuals and on households was a singular moment. One afternoon, I was looking at the Bosphorus bridge, which people can normally spend over an hour in their cars simply to cross due to the immense traffic and overcrowding there. However, there was a moment where I looked at the bridge and didn’t see anything. No cars or trucks or motorcycles, not even people crossing the bridge. It was a moment of solitude, and was interrupted by the crossing of some cars a couple of seconds later. However, it was enough of an image for me to always remember the pandemic by. Though it doesn’t sound very significant as I’m writing, seeing the Bosphorus bridge, which can have traffic even at 4AM in the morning, empty, made me realize the extent to which the pandemic had been affecting everyone. Though watching the news, reading the papers and hearing from friends and family had shown me the severity of the pandemic, this mental image was one that showed me how truly devastating the pandemic had been.

But, as there is a yin, there was also a yang.

The pandemic was a time for me, and people around me, to flourish. It was a time in which I realized where my priorities where: on my physical and mental health, on the health of my family, friends and pets, and on the activities that would help achieve this. I believe always being absorbed in the heavy schoolwork during most of my academic life, as well as being told by my elders that me getting good grades was what “success” was, led me to burnout and an alienation from myself. I felt as though being focused on success without knowing why I was focused on it and what goal I was trying to achieve led to an alienation. I had no time for hobbies or for pursuing my various passions that had existed within me from the beginning of middle school. I believe the pandemic was a time for me to take up hobbies such as pottery, painting, spending time in nature or yoga and work on pursuing my passions, such as my passion for writing and literature, which I eventually began to pursue with this blog!

I read something on the Instagram page of Eve Cornwell that truly allowed me to reflect upon the pandemic and the good things it brought me. The caption of the post mentioned how she had learned that life wasn’t centered around work, work was centered around life. I began to employ this mindset, and eventually further developed my passions and hobbies, which increasd my motivation within my classes as there was something solid I was working towards, a dream I had finally began to contextualize and define.

I took up many lost hobbies as well, one of which is reading. I began to read not only short romance novels because they were easy for me to read and concentrate on, but began reading deeper novels dealing with deeper topics such as “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I’m happy to say is a hobby I’m still doing thanks to the pandemic and how it showed me the importance of doing things for myself.

Overall, though I believe that not having the pandemic in the first place would (obviously) be better, experiencing it also forced some realizations and a period of growth and realizations upon me, as I know it did with other individuals as well. I realized the importance of health, of prioritizing myself when I needed to (because individuals who need help themselves can’t give help), and of my loved ones.

I believe the key point within this blog post is to remember to always look at the yang along with the yin, and even the yin among with the yang. Sometimes, seemingly very tragic and devastating things can lead to the unexpectedly best outcomes.