I had been conflicted for some time now. There are multiple fronts my heart has been at the conflict with my brain. One of the conflicts was to write or not write. The debate has been heating a lot in the last few days owing to the shutdown the world is in right now. My brain is pro writing and my heart has been arguing, you will make fool of yourself with your limited vocabulary and untested writing skills. But today my brain has won this argument as it came up with an idea to express my first thoughts of the day.
As I unwillingly opened my eyes today, I was already feeling grumpy about something. I realized I had woken up to my wife’s voice. She was trying to wake me for almost one hour. I had requested her to wake me up at 10 am and it already had been 10:50 am. (Hey to be fair, I had slept at 3 am, as I was wasting six hours of my good night’s sleep to a game called Call Of Duty - Warzone. Those of you who do not know this game, count yourself lucky and move on!)
Today I was supposed to attend an orientation at noon for a new job. As I got up from bed, the thought of attending four hours of orientation irritated me. But thanks to this pandemic, the orientation was going to be virtual. I thought, okay, I will maybe drink coffee, watch some news, maybe even play video games (it is addictive!) while the videos of orientation play on the computer.
I laughed at the irony of the situation. I was thanking the pandemic for this boring task, but I was compelled to do this task because of the same pandemic. It has been almost two years since I have worked for someone else. I had quit my high paying engineering job to focus full time on my entertainment business in 2018.
The business had its ups and downs but was looking on the right track when the outbreak of COVID-19 was reported in China in January of this year. I was no exception to the damage this coronavirus has caused to the people around the world. Some have experienced physical or mental or financial or all three hardships.
In the beginning, I and the people working with me were in complete denial of the damage this outbreak was causing in China and Europe. My firm produces live concerts in North American and UK markets. Slowly the outbreak reached these countries and was declared a pandemic by WHO. As the denial turned to realization, I had to cancel almost forty-odd live concerts planned till September of this year within a day. The substantial income and gains predicted this year was now a distant dream.
The plan, which we all have, which all proudly flaunt had been destroyed before it started. It has been over a month since all this happened, but it is still the first argument my heart throws in the conflict. It is a very painful thought, but my brain is now learning to cope with this pain.
As I was staring at the coffee machine, brewing my coffee, my heart was trying to find excuses to avoid attending orientation. Somehow my heart wanted to just sit at home and make all things right. My heart was presenting an argument about the unfavorable work environment, mentioned in all those articles about the Amazon warehouse. My heart was now bringing up thoughts of risks involved in going out to a place where hundreds and thousands work. The risk of catching an infection from a stranger working with you.
My heart asked, “Is this risk worth taking, for pay you used to earn while interning seven years back. Is it worth to do this laborious job for someone else?”
My brain gave out a laugh and said, “My dear heart, I just realized you are conflicting with your dark side and not me. I am now shutting out your dark side, the part which you know as ego, so you can come onboard with me”
My heart thought for a moment but said, “You are right my friend. No wonder you are smartest amongst us”
My brain smiled and presented a quote by Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts”