I want to break free!

Loving routines all my life and processes too which follow from it has been something I have reveled in all my life. It always made me feel in control of that time which I could predict and knew had to happen. And it helped immensely. For I was able to plan my day and work on it well. It was liberating to be able to be in control of one’s moorings and aspects in life which we lived each day.

Unusual circumstances require unusual analyses. The year 2020 shall remain a watershed year for several generations. Ours and the ones before us and the millennials too. It was a year of many firsts and many lasts.

‘Normal’ was the first last. ‘Reference points’ the second.

“Uncertainty’ became the first first. ‘Unending despondency’ the second.

It also ironically became a year of ‘ROUTINES’.

Surprise!

People like me should revel in this, one would say. Initially we did, I guess. But when ‘routine’ became ‘routine’ – that is when the urge to break free set in.

In life we always like it when things around us are predictable. It helps us to feel in control. To take charge and be the hero of our lives and its moments. In scenarios when unpredictable and unforeseeable rules the roost, we tend to falter and frail around. The first few months of 2020 were the ‘normal’ we knew of. It started to turn into disbelief by March and became unbelievable by April. The months which followed seemed like a trance and after the initial shock wore off, each of us tried extremely hard to seem productive and positive and both at the same time. It was also a huge humanitarian moment of bonding across the world as nations and communities realized their own fragilities and the pointlessness to be in a race to annihilate each other. Some areas of the world did not heed any lessons because they had taken themselves to stone age much before the virus brought everyone else on their knees. For them ‘pointless’ never meant anything but fighting & disrupting lives pointlessly. So, for them it remained the normal year and beyond.

But for others like us around the globe the turmoil erupted into every aspect of our lives. With a captive existence and a ‘24 x 7-physical-presence’ strain on relationships plus an outside world getting limited to the four confines of everyone’s home led to issues which were intimidating to say the least. With my husband having to attend office physically, being frontline, unlike the rest of the world, my ‘routine’ remained normal. As much as it could, at least. For fear and uncertainty and apprehension and worry preceded everything we did.

Sometimes unusual moments fuel the most bizarre emotions. Like many firsts and lasts, ‘online teaching’ was also a new moment for all involved as was a ‘complete lockdown’. Initially there was a joy for the change of ‘routine’ from the mundane for everyone. Kids loved not having to get up and wear uniforms and go out of the safe confines of their homes while adults loved just wearing a shirt and tie over lazy pajamas for meetings and official work. And then set in the fear and trepidation and boredom. When I see the UNICEF figures about the number of children who have lost their childhood through an almost zero school year, I shudder for I know that those figures will not include schools which made a sham of online teaching by disguising it under that garb. The heart goes out to the students. On a brighter side, the companies and conferences and events realized that options of including a huge world virtually had more benefits than before. The new term ‘hybrid’ got added to our dictionaries with new connotations and new understandings.

Routines. Oh routines! We want to break free.

A comfortable existence, without upsetting the applecart, carrying on regardless of the turmoil within and outside may be the norm but what is an existence which is predictable, staid, and part of the mob.

Breaking the routines with a routine and the mindset of perceptions is what I have reveled in all my life. Makes me feel alive.

Thus, now more than ever when having a ‘routine’ has become routine – I want to break free!!

Is it all about perceptions? Is it about positivity? Is it about self-belief? Is it about thriving in adversity? Is it about believing in the power of karma?

Well, I’d say: Life is a little of all and then some more!!!