Navtan Kumar
Political editor, The Sunday Guardian, New Delhi (INDIA)
The corona pandemic definitely came as a shock. We never faced such a situation in our life time. It was unprecedented. Remember, in the beginning, there were numerous articles / TV shows in which it was explained how this lockdown is going to be a big opportunity for those who always had excuses of not getting time to do different works – both professional as well as domestic. And, how the time could be utilised to make the most out of it… how it could be used to revive your creative pursuits.
Got to finish pending works
So like many others (assuming), I also got inspired and ‘decided’ that I will finish all unfinished works. Subsequently, a list of works which were pending for a long time was ready. I ‘resolved’ that I would complete all those works in the lockdown (of 21 days). Three weeks is a long enough period to finish my unfinished works, I thought.
Planned to do violin practice
I also ‘vowed’ that I would revive my violin ‘riyaz’, which I had left long time back. The first feeling which came after I made the list, was of a sigh of relief. “Thank God, all those pending works would be completed in these three weeks,” I thought. I was so relaxed with the very thought that all my pending works would no longer be pending after the lockdown, that I failed to even start working on the list for a few days. As one week passed, I realised that I am there where I was earlier, at the time of start of the lockdown.
Working from home is more challenging
The daily routine though became quite regular. Getting up in the morning, little bit of physical exercise, online yoga sessions of the Bhartiya Yog Sansthan, followed by some household works, Ramayan serial and then office assignments.
Thankfully, there was no complacency on that part as work from home, in my view, is more challenging than going to office. In the evening, it was Mahabharat, again Ramayan and so on. Every day started with a new resolve to complete those unfinished projects but by the evening it was back to square one.
Same scene during lockdown 2
Anyway the days passed on. Hardly any of the listed works could be completed. And then lockdown 2 was announced. I sat down and started introspecting and justified my inability to finish those works. “I could not do because there was a sense of fear inside my mind, because of the global corona situation (and it was true also to some extent),” I explained to my inner self.
Anyway, I thought I need to make a stronger resolve this time. And then I started on it. This time it was definitely better and some of those pending worked got cleared (about 20 percent). But the list by and large remained long as some works got added also in the process.
Pending works remain pending
Days passed off. I kept on trying to finish those pending works. The lockdown has entered its fifth phase (which is also referred to as ‘unlockdown’). The world is getting back to normal gradually. But as I introspect, most of my pending works remain pending even now, even after two months of lockdown. At the end of the day, I find that the list of works remains almost the same when the lockdown started. And also, I could not play violin for even one day.
Lack of commitment
So the big lesson which I learnt in this process was that it is not the lack of time, but the lack of commitment or sincerity which is our biggest hurdle. Also, I realised that if a work is really urgent, it will definitely be executed immediately. One need not make any list in that case. And, if the work is close to our heart, we hardly ignore it. Do we really note down to wish a dear friend on his birthday? It’s there in our mind. I realised that the works which I had mentioned in the list were not urgent.
If you’ve passion, you’ll do it
Another lesson which I learnt from the experience is that the delay in completing a work is also because of lack of clarity. If you are not convinced about something, or you are indecisive about it, you just tend to postpone it, and note it down in the list of works. But if you have clarity and conviction, you will not wait for days to finish it. So it is unfair to blame time constraint for delay in implementing certain projects. If you are passionate about it, you will do it. Otherwise, you will not be able to do it ever in your life time.
0 Comments