Can you still remember when we were asked to stay at home at the peak of COVID-19?
Were the government-imposed lockdowns scary when we first heard about them, thinking that we couldn’t go out of our houses anymore and couldn’t do whatever we wanted to do in life?
Well, it did happen, and sure enough, we adapted slowly.
But there was some sort of resistance building inside our hearts at the beginning, wasn’t there?
No one should tell me when I can and can’t go outside my house.
And for some of us, we realize that even before the pandemic, we don’t go out as much, so what’s the difference?
Still, we felt terrible about it, didn’t we?
Why?
Perhaps we felt terrible about losing control of what we could do to cope with all the crazy things happening around us, things that we are yet to understand. Everything just happened so fast in 2020.
We felt terrible about losing our autonomy to decide for ourselves that yes, “I could go out of my house because I want to. But right now, I decided to stay.”
We didn’t want somebody else deciding that we should stay in our homes, especially not the government. But our leaders, endowed with authority, want what’s best for us.
And now that we learned the habit of isolating ourselves once we “got it,” we don’t feel as bad about staying at home as before. Because it’s our decision now to stay at home, for the sake of others.
It’s the autonomy we seek.
jessa 