By: Wajeeha Bilal
We live in an age of self-abundance and yet a sudden pandemic can expose how imperfect this belief is. In Pakistan, the pandemic is posing a danger to the surroundings, suffocating health systems and threatening lives. Amidst the rising cases of corona outbreak across the world, there is a growing sense of anxiety and panic. We see it in the once busy public places, we feel it when we talk to others and we hear it every time we put on the news. It is in these crucial times that we choose through love or fear.
Pakistan has reported the highest number of daily Covid-19 since June 16, 2020. According to the data released by the National Command and Operation Centre, 4,004 cases and 102 deaths were reported in a single day. When death strikes our communities and the existential fear hangs around the corner, then just looking out for oneself becomes pernicious. There is a delicate line between self-care and self-absorption. Fear tells us to escape our reality into the darkness while love shows us the light to enlighten the path for us and others. These two emotional weapons govern the whole world around us, our choices and ultimately the fate of this world hangs around in space created by fear or love. Life is in fact more powerful when we learn to balance the two, we can feel scared of a situation and at the same time accept our reality. We can learn to make a plan that is beneficial for our survival but does not prove harmful to others around us.
In Pakistan the NCOC reported that a total of 10,584,877 tests had been conducted since the outbreak of the virus. There are about 631 hospitals with Covid-19 facilities with more than 4,500 patients admitted across the country. Human population now is a thousand times greater than it was for most of human history, so there are vastly more opportunities for new human diseases to originate. Threats to humanity, and how we address them, define our time. Taking precautions executes the hope that we are likely to make it out of this phase. Not because the tasks are minor, but because we bear the collective love to grow out of them. The truth that these threats grow from human action reveals that human action can tackle them as well.
Countries around the world are mounting COVID-19 vaccines, and the most essential concern is their safety. Following tested precautions is still the best way to keep us all safe from COVID-19.
Loss of control always results in panic and that’s what the world is experiencing while feeling anxious about the results of this viral outbreak. It may not be easy to cope with fear, trying to control over a situation that seems to be made of absolute chaos. Even though we feel that our measures may not produce results, we might be closer to the truth than we think. The truth about humanity, the truth that we all and everything around us ceases to exist, how fragile everything and everyone is and what really matters is HOW we handled the situation. When faced with the fear of mortality how much we were able to control it with love and think of the other person facing the same scenario.
Dealing with care and precaution shifts our perspective from helplessness to empowerment by knowing and trusting that our actions create the world. We learn to become a part of the solution and not propagate the problem. It is very essential to say that no matter what happens, I’ve done the best that I can to be prepared and have given my best to the world. A pandemic that sees no race or nation, has brought a true test for the humanity, which will either be fought in fear or overcome through love. The artistic association between people and infection so far emasculates it to show the true toxin to be human differences that are based on fears.
Whether we like it or not, our time will always be shared with others and it will be limited in some way or another. Amid these scary stories it’s worth remembering that, while we may not have control over everything, we can always do things that spark love and spread joy around us. Just like a disease, panic itself is a killer, fearing every moment and hoarding out of fear can never be as satisfying as the joy of helping each other or at least thinking of others. No one is here to live forever; all we can do is try to spread some relief or love through our thoughts and actions, not the pain and fears of what is doomed to happen. Fear is natural, we are all anxious, with even the authorities declaring that there is a huge deal about this outbreak that we just don’t know yet. We fear what we don’t understand. And what we fear, we seek to control. We just need to make sure not to let the fear control us as we might have to sustain with it for a while.
While we all wait in the fear of the unknown, we might as well learn to evolve as a human race and hoard the feelings of joy and care for the things and people that we took for granted when times were in our favor and the only way to do that is by taking precautions in every way we can. In the fear of living an ordinary life we tend to forget that it is these small daily acts of kindness and care that make our lives extraordinary.
The writer is author of “The Conscious Ego” and “The Beautiful Present”)
