It has been over a week since President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the country will be going into lockdown and the news was met with collective anxiety from the public, as well as praise for making a proactive decision.
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For many of us young people, this pandemic brings a lot of uncertainty. I have friends who had plans of going overseas for work, graduation at most tertiary institutions has been cancelled, places of work where young people and students rely on day-to-day paychecks has been put on hold and young freelancers might not have any work to look forward to in the near future. As uncertain as this period is, it shouldn’t see young people put themselves under more pressure to make something out of themselves.
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I’m not saying you shouldn’t be productive during these 21 days, but there’s nothing wrong with putting your mind at ease and hitting the reset button. Not all young people are privileged enough to be fed and have a roof over our heads during this time (thanks mom and dad) and that means we all have different realities during this time. We all face different challenges, like some young people have to deal with their families for longer than what they’d like, final year university students are anxious about the state of their most important year, other young people live alone and that could breed mental health issues and severe loneliness.
With that said, the most important thing to do during this lockdown is to keep your mind at ease. If you set yourself unattainable goals, it is likely to create unnecessary pressure on yourself. Putting your mind at ease this lockdown also means not consuming too much news about the pandemic. The stories you’ll hear on news outlets globally won’t always be positive so it’s healthy to switch off a bit and consume something else, like reading a light-hearted and watching something on Netflix (Not those disaster related movies)
Do not listen to those capitalism enthusiast, who constantly guilt trip people for not being productive and think that you can start a business or work on a business plan in the middle of a pandemic, it’s incredibly vital to lower your stress levels during this lockdown. You can go back to basics and revisit healthy hobbies like diarising your day, playing card games, light exercises and even participating in pointless internet challenges on social media. I’ve seen users on Instagram participating in trends like the #gamefacechallenge, which is for the athletes who want to post pictures of themselves in action. The #babyfacechallenge, where users post baby pictures of themselves and tag fellow users to partake. The #jolfacechallenge, requires you to post a picture of yourself partying and the “Until tomorrow” challenge, where you post an ugly/questionable picture of yourself on your feed and the first person that likes your post, has to do the same thing. You’re also required to keep the post up for 24 hours!
Do what works for you this lockdown, don’t let these pseudo motivational speakers tell you what to do.
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