Would you agree that ZOOM (the company) was the biggest winner during this pandemic? Who among the people you know have not been on this application during our lockdown days and what seems to be a "no end social distancing" time of the year?
Are you hooked up on Zoom? Do you have a child or children doing distance learning over it? Are you working remotely and do most of your meeting over the computer? Who would have thought that our private lives will be invaded by this new app?
ZOOM for my son's distance learning. Zoom for my meetings. Zoom for attending continuing education online. Zoom for our Women's Bible Study. Zoom for connecting with friends. Our son's 10th birthday over Zoom. Exercise and Zumba with friends over Zoom. Zoom for kids' activities. Zoom for our Halloween Party. Worship services streaming live or over Zoom. Cooking or crafting class, even Masterclass are done online. What else can you not do over Zoom nowadays?
DISCLAIMER: I am not in any way paid for by ZOOM to advertise their app. Just trying to write something to uplift, entertain and encourage YOU and myself a little bit during these uncertain times.
There comes a point in my life at times where I just wanna be free from everyone and everything. Lock myself in a vault and just be by myself (this is the 25% introvert in me) and this pandemic didn't in anyway help me improve on that side but rather make it worse, these are the moments when I resort to writing, like this very blog you are reading and "My Sunday Thoughts" inspirational blog (on pen and paper draft, old fashioned kind of way).
Thankfully, ZOOM have made all these things possible so we can continue on with life. Whether it is through Zoom or any other platforms, it is a way of connecting and doing life as we know it during this pandemic. In the middle of this chaotic and isolating society we are dragged into, I saw a glimmer of light at the end of the very long and what seems like an unending tunnel.
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” ― Dale Carnegie
Using Zoom, a little help from friends and a lot of re-connecting with old friends (at my previous job), we started a small project. Being part of a big community from my first real nurse's job in the Philippines, I have kept a close relationship and stayed connected together over Facebook (this helped a lot too during the lock down here and over there in the Philippines). As this pandemic has kept most of us busy as frontliners and healthcare workers, managing our fear of the unknown, or this unseen enemy; continue working in the middle of illness; and even loss of life, we thought of taking it on to Zoom to support each other.
We started a private "CoViD Conversations" over Zoom, with videos posted weekly in our Facebook group. We started in August and I thought, much like this blog, that it would only last for a couple of months the most, but here we are eight months on the CoViD and four months into our CoViD Conversations we are still going on..... Now that a second wave is sweeping Europe again, our cases here in the US are climbing up, the holiday celebrations are coming close meaning - (1) a threat to another lock down is not far from it; and (2) the uncertainties of the vaccine availability is still in limbow, and so we have decided to continue on with our "CoViD Conversations" as a means of encouragement for each other with our experiences with the pandemic. I am as overwhelmed as everybody else with everyone's support getting in on the conversations we all needed to do.
Life in the middle of this pandemic has certainly made us all adapt to whatever is available to us. For healthcare workers and frontliners like us, this reality is short of describing is as "challenging" and so we have to find ways and time to support each other and take ourselves out of that "hard situation" at work, relax a bit and try to be human outside of our profession again. To be a healthcare worker (especially nurses and doctors) is not an 8-hour job it is a 24/7 profession but at some point we just have to take a break and be just "us" - a human being, a son/daughter, a brother/sister, a dad/mom, a grandparent, an uncle/aunt or just a "gamer" or maybe a "vlogger/blogger" for some and still for some a "TikTok"-er I think we all deserve to have some fun or just enjoy the moment.
Zoom has definitely helped our community to support each other in a certain way. We used this platform to cater to our need and used it with limitation and control from our side and not from them. We used technology for a better cause, not for more screen addiction. And I am thankful we were able to use this kind of technology for a common good.
How is your life doing right now in the midst of CoViD-19 still looming around us? What are some ways you have been coping and connecting with families and friends? Now that CoViD-19 cases are on the rise again, how are you planning to cope better this second time around? Zoom might not be the answer to everything but it surely helped me to cope and thrive through all these. There are other ways I am sure! Facetime, google meets, messenger rooms, webex, Facebook portal, webinars, etc. If we want to really stay connected while distancing physically we can find ways. We can find better ways.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” ― C.S. Lewis
At the end of the day we are all just humans clamoring for social interaction and if we are not confident with being a part of a social bubble yet, then we can continue our friendship through all other means just to reconnect. Let us make an effort, let's make a move, maybe our friend is just waiting for us to make the initial contact....Zoom or no zoom we can still cultivate great friendships by whatever means we have, we just need to be really intentional about it.
Go open your contacts, dial a number of a friend you have not talked to or heard from for some time. Make someone smile!
STAY SAFE AND BE BLESSED.
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