Looking Forward to the End

By: Justin Carlo Estor, Senior Digital Associate

When you watch a movie or your favorite TV show, you sometimes find yourself trying to guess how it will end: will good win over evil? Will the true villain reveal itself? Will there be a part two? In the case of this pandemic, however, what you really long for is a happy ending, and you want it  to come as soon as possible.

As a TeamAsian, you tend to overlook the daily musings of everyday work life: making sure the elevator reaches the 18th floor before 9:01 a.m., figuring out where to get your lunch, thinking if  you wanna walk to CENA (arguably the office’s top foodie destination) or if you just wanna order from FoodPanda, and even considering whether or not you need to go overtime for a deck or if you can pull it off tomorrow. These things are usually part of a possibly tiring cycle as a TeamAsian. However, this cycle isn’t something we get to experience today anymore – and it’s a cycle that, in my opinion, we’d surprisingly welcome to go back to soon.

Apart from that, I think it’s a general feeling that people even in other organizations are experiencing right now:

“I miss the office.”

“I miss going out.”

“I miss eating at restaurants.”

“I miss talking to people… face-to-face.”

Some of these things you may have taken for granted when everything was still normal. Now, we’re stepping into what people call the “new normal” –  physical distancing, curfews, paranoid hand washing, and whatever you consider as a precaution in this pandemic.

Still, you can’t help but still wish for things to go back to the way they used to be, and a part of me is saying that it will.

Instead of hating being stuck at home, we’ll go back to ranting about long traffic lines.

Instead of hating on eating the same home-cooked meals, we’ll go back to getting mildly disappointed for wrong restaurant orders and gently asking for the correct dish, which is the one you ordered.

Instead of hating on becoming physically distant, we’ll instead chat about that one friend that forgot to pay their share on the bar tab.

Instead of hating on figuring out what to watch, we’ll go back to struggling to book a flight during a seat sale, but still being excited about the entire trip you’re planning.

And once we’re back to ranting on all the things we seemingly dislike, we’ll realize that we actually loved these instances. Because, let’s face it, it really is easy to take most things for granted – especially when even the simplest forms of freedom are taken away from you. It’s safe to say that we now have a newfound appreciation for things we’re actually privileged to have – from being able to hang out with friends and officemates to simply being able to go outside.

I imagine myself, sitting back in my office chair, smiling after internally complaining about fully booked meeting rooms, water dispensers that go empty fast, and excruciatingly long meetings then thinking:

“We finally made it to the end. Things are back to normal. We can already start anew.”

So if you ask me, I’ll choose that cycle anytime over this pandemic, and I’ll be forever thankful once it’s over.

I’m really looking forward to it.