Lockdown: An Opportunity to Reboot

A lot of people, including me, were taken by surprise by the swiftness and extent of the actions taken by Government of India in ordering a complete lockdown till April 14, 2020 to contain the spread of Covid-19 virus. The first reaction was of FEAR... Is this Armageddon? End of the World? Meetings, offices, schools, travel, starbucks, golf, business plans- all of it gone off limits?

There are some people who thought that the economic cost of a lockdown would exceed the medical health cost of social distancing. That this was an extreme measure taken by the Modi Government and like Demonetisation it has not been well thought out. As it is, in a third world country like India with a population of over 1.3 billion persons unfortunately, the cost of human life is low and the Darwinian philosophy of 'survival of the fittest' would play out to leave a stronger race. So what if a couple of thousand persons die of Covid-19, it would still be lesser than the number of deaths in India due to road accidents and TB.

But such naysayers, have not understood how rapidly attitudes in India are changing with greater economic strength of a young population. The resilience to adapt to new technology, to adopt Work From Home (WFH) and become productive during lockdown. The West is coping with greater cases of anxiety and depression during lockdown due to people living independently without friends and family. However, in India where home is still where family is, such social challenges are much fewer and seen as an Urban rich problem.

The Secret of Being Happy is accepting

where you are in life

and making the most

out of everyday.

The lockdown can be taken as a blessing in disguise for humankind to reboot and consider whether our lifestyle is sustainable and whether un-ending economic growth is the parameter of happiness and success. As a chartered accountant by profession and a student of economics, I have been trained to read numbers with a passion towards driving tax efficiencies, process efficiencies, investment efficiencies, governance efficiencies, reporting efficiencies all of which must lead to Keynsian growth in a free market. However, this unending quest for growth and efficiencies seems futile in such force majeure events, when one if forced to reconsider what one has heard and learnt as being the 'right way' and which the unconscious mind has accepted as the only way.

Some suggestions for rebooting are:-

• Eat right. ... 
• Exercise. ... 
• Accomplish one big task. ... 
• Do one thing that you love. ... 
• Rest effectively. ... 
• Be present with others.
• Write down your goals and evaluate sustainability of those goals

We all owe it to ourselves to make improvement, course correction so that on the other side of the lockdown there is a better world waiting for us!