Please don’t get me wrong. No! Social Distancing is NOT moving away from people’s mind and heart.
India’s specialty is people, people and more people. Birth or death, success or happiness, wedding or festivals, they are always with people around. In the past decade, busy urban life and apartments culture of not disturbing the neighbors have been leading to social distancing and COVID has further aggravated it.
While Covid-19 calls for conscious and strict social distancing, we have to remind ourselves it is only physically. We still need to be emotionally close, in fact, emotionally together more than in any time of the past.
“Joint family of today is husband and wife living together” is what speakers tell jokingly on stage, it is already becoming a reality rather than an exception, is the worry. I as a kid, have gone to my aunt’s village for a wedding for 15 days – you know whose – my uncle’s sister’s grand daughter’s wedding. That’s luxury today. When I delivered, there were at least five men and women at home, carrying out designated tasks to assist the new born and the mother. Absolutely pampering. There was no trouble in bringing up children, since the child naturally learnt good and bad from different types of relatives right under one roof and learnt life firsthand. When we travel on road, we would talk about everything that we saw around, now we either look at the little screen in our hands or close eyes and plug the ears with music, disconnected from the outside world, whatsoever.
With Covid, children who were cursing school are craving to get back to school and meet friends. Professionals who had Monday blues because they had to travel to work, are now hooked on to computers all day, struggling to manage family and calls (women and men as well) and are waiting to go back to workplace. Family time and personal space have gone for a toss. Weddings and deaths are with limited number of people and we miss our dear ones.
We are essentially emotional beings. We normally go crazy with the noise and chaos at home, true, but we will become mentally ill if we remain lonely. Media platforms do their bit in driving us nuts.
Can we have people closer please. Loneliness will kill people of emotional starvation if vent for our sorrows, sharing of success, listening and talking are all through virtual media and if there are no REAL people around. Emojis are nowhere close to the sound of laughter, hugs and lending shoulders when we need each other.
Till such time recurs, we need to physically distance ourselves. Emotional distancing tends to become a natural byproduct, for, “out of sight is out of mind”. We need to consciously express love, compassion, understanding and care for people who matter to us, whether in the family or at work. Till emotional togetherness becomes a part of our system, we could draw up time slots in our daily schedule to be with people.
Physical distancing is to be continued for more time, emotional distancing however has to be reduced.
About the Author
Usha Ramky is a life-skills Coach, Speaker, Author, Columnist and humorist. After a 15 years Multinational Bank experience she is into life-skills coaching since 2003. She has authored self-help books in English and Tamil. Her purpose is to make this world place a happier place to live in, to her best.