Covid Awareness

IMAGINATION DURING THE TIME OF THE PANDEMIC

The importance of imagination in our lives cannot be overstated. It allows us to escape our mundane daily lives by fantasizing about travel, eating, falling in love, or having the last word—all of the things that make life intriguing. Imagination allows us to see new possibilities and serves as a crucial springboard for realizing our dreams. It inspires us to be more creative, eliminates boredom, reduces pain, increases pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships.

Our worlds have become smaller over the last year as the Covid-19 virus has spread. Working from home has become less of a novelty and more of a necessity. Travel, whether for work or pleasure, has become almost non-existent. We can't and won't be able to see friends, dine at our favorite restaurants, or visit family for months.

Right now, there is no need to explain the concept of "crisis management." When something unexpected and substantial occurs, our initial reactions are to guard against the disruption to the status quo and then to understand and manage the havoc. The crisis is an unanticipated foe that one must subdue to restore normalcy. However, probably, we will not be able to return to our pre-crisis situation. Pandemics can result in new attitudes, requirements, and behaviors that need control. We believe that imagination - the ability to build, evolve, and exploit mental representations of things or circumstances that do not yet exist - is a critical component in grabbing and generating new opportunities, as well as discovering new avenues to growth.

Under stress, imagination is one of the most trying things to maintain. The monotony and lack of novelty in our Covid-19 lives can hamper our creativity. However, you may do more than adjust to new surroundings with imagination. You can mold it and create new possibilities.

For anyone to mentally escape life's most difficult times, one must be able to imagine joyful occurrences such as travel, adventure, love, or anything else that makes one "feel better" at the moment. Our artistic manifestations - visual, movement, improvisation, or performance - are times of imagining new experiences, which frequently result in personal change.

For most of us, imagining what life would be like after the pandemic is terrifying. Our minds are wired to prefer unpleasant scenarios to happy ones. But we must begin to see beyond it with a sense of self-efficacy and imagination to leave these adverse scenarios behind us.

It is the time to develop and use your ability to create, evolve, and carve out entirely new paths. And, believe it or not, your imagination will play a critical role in all of these tasks. So, let's see how you can improve it:

• Reflect – Take some time to reflect on what has happened and what is to come. Consider your skills and how you may best utilize them. Meditate, listen to music, dance, or do whatever else that makes you happy on the inside.
• Ask open-ended questions – Consider how the present situation might affect you as an individual. How will you be able to serve your customers in the future? What can you do to improve yourself? In this day of fierce competition, how would you carve out a place for yourself?
• Be playful – There's no denying that engaging in physical exercise sharpens your mind and makes you laser-focused. It naturally enhances your imagination and allows you to tune with your inner self and the outside world.
• Seek unexpected – In a time of shifting dynamics, one surely cannot think of things not changing. Unpredictable possibilities and challenges would come to you and if you want to be the winner, embrace them.
• Value ideas – Read, explore, and communicate. Upgrade yourself. Collect, share, and scale your ideas. Allow your acquaintances and friends to share their thoughts and ideas, and use this pandemic as an opportunity to make real connections. That will undoubtedly give tangible results.
• Thrive on hope – Do not give up hope in the face of adversity. One cannot be pushed to remain optimistic all of the time. All that can be said is that if we hold on to our hopes, we can get through anything.