Krönika: To turn a pandemic

Like many others like me during this new decade of 2020 – I have learned a lot during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have learned what I value but also what I disvalue in the world around me: among societies and people. We now live in an era of questions – When will it end? Will it ever end? How do we know it is ending? There has hardly been a day that has gone by where the word ‘corona’ or ‘covid-19’ has not been mentioned by friends, family or media. It has also been rather rare to not bump into a Swede who has not started their sentences with ‘I dessa tider’.

By having relatives or friends in a different part of the world during times like these, I myself have relatives in a part of the world that does not have the same resources as Sweden do, and have therefore had a very different outlook on the pandemic. Their sentences started with something more drastic than ‘I dessa tider’.

If there is something the pandemic has brought to the people of 2020 then that is perspective. Perspective on life and how differently Sweden has handled the situation in comparison to most other countries. Where our government did not only not encourage us to stay at home, provided us students with an income during circumstances we would have not necessarily been provided, but also given us the possibilities to work and study from home. Meanwhile others in other parts of the world do not have that kind of support from their governments. Instead, they are not only forced to go to work but expected to deliver at work as before.

With the awareness of sounding a bit cliché, but not until a piece of you dies do you fully understand and value life again. I myself lost my grandfather during this turbulent time we are living in now, and it was not until that day that I could take a break from my life and see it from a bird perspective. I started asking myself questions I have not done in a long time, such as why I do what I do, where I want to be and who I want to become. Is what I am doing today going to take me to reach such goals? Or am I just wandering about?

Even though it may seem a bit odd and insensitive to mention, but I truly believe that the world needed a break – the world needed a pandemic, in order for us to truly live again.

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