I imagine the first thought for any university student when holidays are mentioned is finding a job. While some may prefer jetting around the world, there is very much a pressure to use the period away from lectures and seminars wisely. Often, this involves endless searching for internships: something to put on the CV and hopefully offer a rewarding experience into a desired employment path. When essays aren’t being written and revision has been put on the back-burner, an individual can spend their time wisely.
Given my term at Warwick has just concluded for Easter, the perfect time has arrived for seeking that work experience. Events, however, would dictate otherwise. What is there left to say about the coronavirus? The disease, Covid-19, that none of us had heard of until early January, has dominated world news ever since. There are now more cases outside of China that in the country the disease originated in. The world has been bought to standstill, quite literally! People are being told to self-isolate, leave work and spend a maximum amount of time at home. Our lives have utterly transformed. People used to heading into an office five times a week for eight hours a day suddenly have lots of free time. This raises huge implications about pay, rent and all the human costs of living. But I will put those to one side. Those debates are for another blog. My focus is instead on people coping with working from home; the extra free time that has suddenly entered their lives. What do we do? How will I cope with no delayed trains?! It seems some may use the time to replicate what they do in their spare time: watch Netflix, obviously. The company will rival Google or YouTube in its global reach and ability to influence such a wide audience. It is obvious why, after a long day at work and awful commute, people want to escape from the world in an easy way by watching the latest hit drama. For many, it can become an intrinsic part of their daily routine: work during the day, Netflix in the evening. The situation is different now. Many people will no longer have to commute for the foreseeable future. Of course, I understand people will be ill, looking after those who are ill, doing office work simply at home and worrying about other matters. However, I want to make the case that individuals do have more time on their hands. The excuse of a long working day is, for some, no longer the case. Self-isolation can simply be a time for recuperation. However, many people, myself included, have some long term creative goal in place. Whether it’s writing a novel, producing some music, writing a screenplay, painting the perfect landscape piece, sewing away or starting a podcast, there is an aspiration towards some kind of goal outside the main working environment. It is the sort of task that doesn’t bring instant gratification. Though we love the medium - be it writing, talking, painting, designing or playing a musical instrument - to achieve the goal well takes much time, effort and dedication over years. It can be easy, therefore, to put off fully investing in the goal. If the tasks of work and adulthood get in the way, the time we have to fully devote ourselves to this creative goal is inevitably diminished. Fearing the time will ultimately be wasted, with our goal rejected by others, we decide that never finishing in the goal in the first place is more satisfying. Never failing by never trying is seen as preferable to the other option. Though we love that goal and aspire towards it, the excuse of ‘never having enough time’ ultimately wins. Success stories are those who balance their (often secret) passion with a full time job. Authors who can eventually live off writing start their craft with a 9am - 5pm job, writing in the evenings and at weekends to get published. They are willing to sacrifice the instant gratification of Netflix for the ultimately deferred gratification of undertaking their passion for a living. I am not saying coronavirus will ultimately change this. In the long term, many will return to work after the worst of the virus has ended (though this may not be for a year). But I do think the virus is beginning an important discussion about the future of work. Maybe bosses will begin to trust more of their workers completing tasks from home. With that extra time, individuals with long held, so far unachieved, dreams might just be able to covert them into reality. The saying goes that a crisis should never be wasted. People may have extra time to convert a seemingly impossible goal into reality. That is one ray of light in this otherwise awful time.
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