Life lessons learnt amid pandemic

Let’s face it, the world has been transformed on a huge scale. We were all glad to see the back of 2020, not that the start of 2021 has been much better. But what have we learned as a people, as a nation, as individuals?

Here is my take on what I think are the (often positive) lessons of the past year.

People are adaptable

As a community, when the COVID-19 situation was at its worst (we didn’t have it as bad as most) businesses were forced to adapt to a different client base and find new ways to operate. I saw CrossFit Geraldton, Geraldton Boxing Centre and many other gyms go online, creating video workouts, Zoom workouts, and audio workouts.

Cafes went to home delivery. I was blown away by Dalgleish Catering, Freemasons and many other of our local cafes and restaurants’ ability to think on the fly and still provide an awesome service.

We have some awesome schools

Strathalbyn Christian College (now Geraldton Christian College), Nagle Catholic College and most of the schools in the Mid West hit the virus head-on. Teachers adapted, improvised, put up with U-turns from on high, and came out looking like champions.

As a teacher, I saw first-hand how disrupted the school year was, but also how well adults and students coped with it all.

Hats off to our educators and students.

My relationship with my family came out stronger than ever

COVID-19 forced us all to adapt, to improvise and, quite frankly, to do stuff the opposite way to how we have done it before. Families already under the pump with work, education and outside activities were put under pressure to keep life “as normal as possible” for the sake of their mental health.

Gone were the days of falling on the sofa when we got in from work.

Now we had to do a complete change of clothes, disinfect our wallet and keys, jump in the shower, and bag up our work clothes.

We had to supervise online learning. We had to entertain ourselves, with so many options outside our homes now in lockdown.

Families, couples and singles rose to the occasion in so many different ways.

We learned how to throw ourselves into new challenges

How many of us used the time gifted to us productively?

I learned new recipes, use of ingredients and how to cook different cuisines. I learned basic horticulture and how to apply it in our climate, and so many other things. I know so many others who did gardening from dusk until dawn, home improvements, and whose houses had never been so clean.

This does not take away from the hardships so many experienced, or the inability to travel and see our families down south or over east. The ridiculous panic buying and selfishness. But it does show us hope of what we can be, given the right motivation and the right circumstances.

It makes us better human beings.