Graphic courtesy of the Butler Collegian.
CHELSEA GROVES | OPINION COLUMNIST | cmgroves@butler.edu
Due to the flabbergasting ripple effect of the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, and the list of alterations to our daily schedule that went along with it, the month of March felt like a year. It’s hard to put this time of our life into realistic context.
The unprecedented circumstance has thrown a wrench in the end-of-the-year plans for many college students. Shifting to online classes for the remainder of the year, closing campus as a whole, athletic seasons abruptly ending, and commencement being canceled with no solidified solution have turned what should be an enjoyable time into something much more difficult to wrestle with.
With all of these last-minute changes to meaningful events in our lives, it is easy to immediately develop negative feelings toward this situation. Perspective is key in coping with this, and we have to remember that the world has not shut down permanently.
Of course this is easier said than done, or it may sound too simplistic, but think about it for a second.
We have been forced to adjust our lifestyle to quarantine with social distance, to stay up-to-date with health authorities for further information that changes by the second and to rearrange our daily happenings into a crash course for every single thing in the book. These musts aren’t negative, they are testing our strength.
Believe it or not, look how much stronger we already are.
We are stronger because we have to think about not only the step right in front of us, but the steps in front of those steps. We are stronger because we are taking the time to acknowledge each other in all aspects of life more than ever. We are taking care of each other and checking in on one another when it comes to our physical and mental health. We are unable to determine the immediate future because there is an extreme grey area, which requires us to be there for each other even more.
And without us being familiarized with technology from a leisure standpoint before all of this, we wouldn’t be as confident navigating Zoom, tackling any of these online classes or confidently doing anything that involves readapting to the current world. Not only has leisure technology set us up for success, our prior and ongoing relationships have made it easier to move forward because we are, as the saying goes, “all in this together.” We have no other choice other than to strive to maintain normalcy with the technological resources that are available for us to function right now, which we wouldn’t have had less than 10 years ago.
This is an episode in life that we will always look back on, and realize that we were honestly more prepared than we thought.
