Best wishes for your safety
The experience has been unique for every individual when it comes to Covid-19 attack and lockdown phase. Our common goal was although the same, to remain safe, keep others safe and in the meantime to not allow the life cycle to jam. I would like to share what new experiences and challenges this phase brought in my life.
I remember that it was the evening of 13th March, 2020 when I received an unexpected notification from my college that the college is going to be off from tomorrow on due to virus and you will be notified about further plans. Till that time, I just heard about the virus in China and did not expect at all that it could have an affect on us or even the world. Those were the days when my final exams of FSC were approaching and I used to remain occupied most of the time preparing for them. At that instant, I was relieved to get some rest from studies. And as time further passed, the virus situation became worse. This caused the cancellation of board exams all over the country. Not gonna lie I was pretty happy at the time that the virus showed up and rescued us from exams. But I was also worried, not so much about my safety but about the safety of my family and my beloved ones.
The challenges, problems and worries then started to show up as the virus situation kept escalating. My main focus became the preparation for entry tests of renowned universities. Realizing the importance of skills, I was also determined to master some of the skills related to computer programming to broaden future possibilities and to carry a percentage of my educational expenses in the future. But it was not easy at all, all the institutions were shutdown and I couldn't find any help no matter how hard I tried as I belong to a city not so big and developed. The efforts to learn from the internet also went in vain as after some days, it felt like that I have made zero progress. I wanted to go out of my city but couldn't. I considered the free time an opportunity and wanted to make full use of it but no matter how hard I tried, there were obstacles everywhere. After months of trying to learn some new useful skills, I found myself very unmotivated and decided to just focus on the entry tests. This was not easy too, as no academies and institutions were open for this purpose. So, I decided to prepare on my own and rely on my own judgement and academic skills and frequently used the internet to further enhance my concepts. On of my closest family members caught virus and her situation was not so good. She is also a nurse and all of us were extremely worried about her health. Thankfully, she recovered after quarantine. This made me realize that life can be really unpredictable and short and nothing can be taken as granted. You have to make full use of every second you breathe, try to spend as much time as you can with your loved ones because you never know when the water is gonna be above your head.
After I got admitted to a university of my choice, I was hyped about starting the university life but all the imaginations and expectations were shattered when the university decided to hold first semester online. It was a really tough period as it was my first time studying online and everything seemed to be out of place and nothing appeared to be in control. I really wished that this virus never showed up or it just disappears miraculously. There were many discouraging moments but I had no choice but to keep going with what I have and rely solely on my abilities and hard work. But it all paid off when I was able to secure extremely good result at the end of first semester.
If I look back at time, it has not been such a bad period after all. There were a lot of challenges and difficulties but being able to overcome them and be in a state to write a blog on it is not a small accomplishment at all. I learned that life can be extremely unpredictable, it can take you to places you cannot even imagine and you will have to deal with issues you never thought about. I personally dealt with a lot such things and now I became stronger in terms of mental strength, skills and confidence. To trust fully in my abilities and not doubt myself are some of the traits I mastered. I also experienced that its useless to mourn about the adversity of circumstances. You have to exhibit resilience and fully utilize the opportunities and time because many other people don't even have those. I have become more grateful for what I have because I realized that in the hard times, many blessings are revealed to us which we haven't thought of before. More than one year has passed since we are dealing with the virus and the future still appears to be unpredictable. We can be confident that even if this situation prevails further, we will be able to deal with it in a much better way as we have gained a lot of experience by now. There are some fears regarding the future that what if life never came back as it was? What if we have to deal with bigger issue triggered by this virus? I myself am somewhat scared about the future because humans seem to be feared about what they are really uncertain. But I believe that we have every reason to be optimistic. Its our quality that we adapt to every situation and try to obtain maximum result from it. Even if the life never returned to as it was before virus, I am sure that we will figure out many ways to make progress and by looking back at time, we will consider ourselves in a better place. There are also some concerns regarding the revival of education and economic systems after the pandemic. I personally think that these systems might be developed into a more advanced and efficient form. Online medium has been best utilized during this phase and we have discovered many potentials of this online system. Although we might argue that online medium is not equivalent to physical medium but by combining the abilities and pros of online system, we can increase our pace of progress and be more efficient in our tasks.
Carrying on with what we have and trying our personal best at the time is what we can do. Hoping for the best and staying optimistic should be our way to move on. Because in the end, "never despair from the mercy of Allah" (Quran).
Sincerely,
Zohaib Ikram
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