Self-Quarantine - Time to look inside ourselves

Tuesday, 14 April 2020 

In the first week of a quarantine day, most of my friends posted on their Instagram about their planning and how excited they felt that finally can have more “holiday” or resting from hard work. In the second week of the quarantine day, some of my friends started to worry about what kind of movie or drama that can be recommended to watch and some of them also started to copy the receipts from youtube and made a great meal for their family. 

How nice doing things in home and mingle with the people we love. But, 3rd and 4th and 5th weeks of quarantine day, my friends on instagram started to questioning themselves including me, myself feel worry and anxiety of what will we do for the next 2,3,4, weeks after today. 

We then, searching the current news in twitter, facebook or any other platform about pandemic situation, Covid19 spread, current economic situation, global recession or even job cutting. People tend to find a negative effect of something happened in life in advance rather than trying to figure it out what are the positive effects of this pandemic. 

I, myself had this character too. What I was searching in my google were mostly a negative effects of this pandemic not the other way around. This leads me to complain and feel anxious about future life. I go too far, I was searching something beyond my capability and worry much of what will happened to this world. I forgot to search inside myself. 

Tuesday Morning on 31 March when I want to have sun bathing as usual, I grab a book on my selves tittle “ Search Inside Yourself”. I got this book 5 years ago from my coworker as a gift, he asked me to read and practice it. But I always have an excuse to do that. But that day, I have no excuse to run from it, I have much time to read any kind of book and finally I choose it to be my first reading material. 

I was drown in the middle of reading, this book if actually quite good and I think I love it. I crewed every sentence about mindfulness. Marcus Aurelius, a philanthropy ever said, “ look within, within is the fountain of all good”. 

Then I realised that when I felt calm inside, I can concentrate more and I can find more good decisions, speak and think good things, I feel I am blessed. I imagine, if whenever I meet anybody, my habitual, instinctive first thought is “ I wish for this person to be happy”. For having such habits change everything at work, because a sincere goodwill is picked up unconsciously by others and I create the type of trust that leads to highly productive collaboration. 

There is also a story written in this book about Gerald Grinstein, a CEO of western airlines and again as CEO of Delta who had to go through painful process of cutting costs. When Gerald took over Delta during crisis, he immediately restoring lines of communication and trust within the company. He understood the importance of creating a positive work environment using his extraordinary leadership skill or emotional intelligence, and he turned a toxic environment into a more family-like atmosphere and turn to gain more revenue. 

What make him different is his intention is always go to the positive ways and his thinking leads him to the positive direction. At the end of this story, we then finally know that he practiced mindfulness by looking inside, by spending 10 to 15 minutes to look inside himself through mediation everyday, every morning, every night. 

Its not easy to practice mindfulness, need to practice everyday… and this quarantine day is a perfect time to practice, right? We can spend 10 to 15 minutes to just enjoy the journey inside our mind and to count every blassing given by God. At the end of this diary, I wish you to be happy.