Everything has its pros and cons. Our generation has been a witness to the life-altering experience of a pandemic, which has not only disrupted our lifestyle and shenanigans that were a part of our daily routines but has also played an influential role in bringing us closer to our realities that we have covered with aesthetic layers of deception.
We became so preoccupied with the thoughts of success and wealth that we forgot about the things that kept us grounded for ages, the things that helped us truly make our life worth living instead of being the part of a rat race. With the slower pace at hand due to the lockdown, we have been provided with a chance to discover, realize, and nurture some life-changing habits for a more sustainable future.
5 Life-Changing Habits You Must Adopt During This Lockdown
1. Cooking your own meals
For most urban households, cooking is a once in a blue moon sort of an occasion. Usually, Millenials rely heavily on online ordering to eat fast foods and processed food items that one can eat on the go. However, the enforced lockdown allowed us to step back from the ready-made food items made readily available at our doorsteps to switch to home-cooked meals throughout the day.
Cooking is not only about creating mouth-watering delicacies, but as a home cook, it is also a way to express your love for food and your appreciation to be able to afford meals during a crisis like this. Not only does it promotes healthier eating habits, but it is also one of the skills that will help keep you salutary for a longer time. (1)
2. Making your home brighter & cleaner
Cleaning or tidying up is regarded as one of the ways to calm the messy space in your head. According to the KonMari method, created by organizing expert Marie Condo (2) in her best-selling book, ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,’ if you grab your hands on a physical item that does not bring joy to your life, you must get rid of it.
Cleaning up your house not only helps purify the environment of all the negative energies but also helps in giving your home a much brighter and fresher appearance through simple cleaning tactics.
Pro tip: Your house defines your personality, so ensure that you use the items that bring you joy instead of buying anything that’s trending. Also, aromatherapy diffusers help bring you at peace due to their pleasant fragrance.
3. Embracing nature
We take things for granted in our lives, and nature is the biggest example of it. How many times have you noticed the beauty of the trees on your streets? Ever took your time to hear the chirping of the birds? No! Thankfully, this lockdown has taught us the importance of nature and how nature itself is better than any aesthetically laid Insta grid if we take our eyes off our screens.
The lockdown has helped nature heal faster than ever. The canals of Venice are impossibly clear (3) after decades, residents of Jalandhar have seen the Himalayan ranges clearly because of the dying pollution (4), and even the ozone layer above Antarctica has recovered drastically because of plunging pollution levels. (5)
4. Being grateful
How ungrateful have we been for the things we own in our lives. We always wanted something bigger and better, without realizing that we are the privileged ones in the society that are lucky enough to have a house to live in, meals to fill our stomachs, and a chance to live life despite having the lockdown imposed.
This time, take time to be grateful. Grateful for the life you have and the priveledges you share with your friends and family. If you’re the lucky ones living with their families right now, spend quality time with them and build a stronger bond. Not everyone is blessed with a happy life; some are still struggling to make ends meet.
5. Building hobbies
We have become so obsessed with being a part of this rat race that we have left the hobbies that were once a vital part of our childhood, isolated where our race began. Utilize this time to build on a hobby or work on something that brings you joy, be it singing, playing instruments, painting, etc.
This time, forget about monetizing hobbies, and forget about being perfect at what you do, play that guitar because you want to, and not to impress the girl you’ve had a crush on for long.
We’re going through the toughest times in history due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Currently, it is pretty hard to function normally because of the traumatic side-effects individuals are facing during the quarantine. However, having a positive outlook towards life never harms anyone. Try working on these five habits and experience a better and more intimate trail of sustainable living.
