By Ben, 18, Chicago, Illinois
As the nation continues to be held in a quarantine and universities have suspended their in-class learning, I have found a lot of time to reflect on myself and how the past year has gone. I’ve found a lot of free time in doing simple things that can preoccupy the excess amount of time I have. These activities include more online gaming, spending time with family, and trying to keep in contact with friends through facetime and social media.
As of right now, all the days seem to blend in to each other, not having a distinct beginning and end. Days become routine, nights feel very similar to daytime– as if the whole world has temporarily stopped itself. I don’t feel terrible being in a stay-at-home order, but I do worry about what will happen in the fall for the next school year. There are a lot of uncertainties to how universities around the world will act in accordance to what progress there might be in a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19. For now, it seems that the more I look into the future, the more unknown it seems.
For me personally, it feels best to focus on the present and what I currently have. COVID-19 could lead towards a much cleaner way of living, and not just cleanliness of our homes and hygiene. This could lead to a much broader way of thinking as we notice patterns around the world of carbon emissions lowering and wildlife returning to parts of land once inhabited constantly by humans.
Gen Z will have a lot to talk about for the future, and I think it will guide us to be more conscious of our actions in our communities and impact a revolution for change as we can see the flaws in our government systems and policies throughout this quarantine. Once a vaccine has been found, and as stay-at-home orders become lifted, the world will seem like it has returned back to normal but in reality a lot will have changed. The world cannot return to the same habits and I think many people have noticed as well.
A lot more change will be fought for throughout the world so that we may never have to experience the effects of COVID-19 or any other pandemic ever again. COVID-19 has scarred the minds of everyone and will be a significant point in history, as many will be unable to forget the long months of isolation and the fears of death that loomed every corner of our daily activities.