It’s been almost two months since more than half of the population in South Korea has stayed indoors. Just when the quarantine had started, it felt like time had stopped just as our daily lives had, and yet, without notice, spring has silently arrived accompanying pinkish cherry blossoms. It is almost as though the warm sunlight will wake us all up from the long cold winter, along with the lukewarm breeze calling for thinner clothes.
As time passes by and seasons change, it seems like we are now finally adjusting our lives based on technologies and applications made before but finally known. I found it a bit amusing how humanity has entered the so-called the Fourth Industrial Revolution years ago and how the world has been talking about that we are ready to enter into a life fully based on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, yet there are parts in our life that we are remembering and speaking up our voices for analog ways.
“What is it that you miss most?” is the question that has been roaming in my mind since the quarantine life had started. As I sat down and thought about it by questioning myself, what I missed were the little things, the small interactions that I was making with the world without noticing such as the sound of the door clicking behind my back while I enter the coffee shop, the delicious smell as I go into the restaurant with my friends after class, the tapping sound of my shoes as I walk from one classroom to another, the background noise formed from strangers’ lively conversations, the breathtaking hugs that I gave to my loved ones, the feeling of the momentum of the bicycle as I ride it under the blue sky, walking down the campus as I go home looking at the mix of purple and orange colors of the sunset…
At first it was alright for me to let down those things for a while because it didn’t really seem to matter at all, but I guess that at the end of the day, what really counts are the little things, the small interactions that build up our daily lives, just like routines create our habits. Is not from one day to another that habits are created and imbedded in our muscles, but as we repeat it and create our own rhythm within the routine, one day it just becomes something normal, something that we are used to, a habit. Like this, the small interactions that we make with the world are the elements that create our daily lives.
Through this reflection that the quarantine life had brought me as if it was an assignment that I had forgotten from long ago, I wrote a note to myself that sometimes we do forget to appreciate those small yet big moments and get fully sucked in by our busy schedules. What happens to the agenda that we plan in order to enjoy those little things in the future?
Now the question that we have to ask ourselves is “Is getting back to schedule what we really want?” Not only me, maybe, but perhaps all of us miss those small moments that make up our lives. So how about if we sit down, turn on some jazzy, calming music and scribble down the things that were creating our own universe. After listing them, put the timetraveling note somewhere you could see daily, such as the front door, the mirror, the refrigerator, etc. only so that after this microscopic war ends, you could remember what it was like not to have those things in your life.
So, after this quarantine life, how about if we stop for just one second and lose ourselves into those moments? Those who know what really matters will later know how to appreciate them too.