Hey Jude!!!

“Hey Jude, don't make it bad

Take a sad song and make it better

Remember to let her into your heart

Then you can start to make it better

Hey Jude, don't be afraid

You were made to go out and get her

The minute you let her under your skin

Then you begin to make it better”

.. sang The Beatles in a song that was written for (or allegedly written for) John Lennon’s son, Julian Lennon, as he coped with his fathers separation from his mother, and his relationship with Yoko Ono, helping him cope with the entire situation. In some way this song speaks to us in our current situation, as we try to stay positive, try to sane, while being indoor and safe but is actually very difficult to do.

It’s very difficult to keep a positive outlook when you’re quarantined, which seems to go on and on, although you know it is for the best to combat the virus. But you struggle with yourself, with your mind and body. Though you try to block out the negativity, things still have a way of getting to you.

In a situation where there’s nothing much to do, it’s difficult to maintain a positive outlook of life when there’s a lot going on your mind. There’s so much going on in your mind that you fear it will overheat and explode. You fear for the safety of your family, the ones you love, the ones who matter, your friends and colleagues. You worry about the future, what is to be once this situation passes (and it will pass, eventually). Your worry about your job security, how would you fend for yourself. You think about the people infected, the lives lost, the ones in the frontline, and it sends a shiver down your spine as you fear for them.

And then you struggle with yourself, your mind, your sanity. You struggle to let nothing get to you but in the end, even the little things triggers you off. You try not to be vain but you worry about your health and fitness, about you putting on weight. Your insecurities keep getting the best of you especially when others are busy and you are sitting on your fat lazy ass, when others seem to be doing workout but you find it a struggle to find the motivation. 

This all turns you irritable, with even the slightest thing ticking you off, when things don’t go your way. You end up taking it on others, the ones quarantined with you, never considering they too are going through the same thing, or even worse. 

You want to do so much, write, read, learn new things, put your life in order, but you can’t quite get yourself to do it at all. And when your health fluctuates, you find yourself riding the lows, down in the dumps. That’s when you really start to social distance because you start to push people away from your life, isolating yourself. This can actually end up taking a toll on your head.

But then as Paul McCartney sang, we need to take a sad song, and in our case, a situation, and try to make it better, not letting it get under your skin. So the key to getting to the other side same is to not let things get under your skin. There are things we can’t help, we have no control on. So we need to accept it and move on and learn to live with it, at least for the moment. There’s nothing much you can do about it so why don’t you make the most of it.

We can always use the time not just getting closer to family and friends, but also to get closer to ourselves, the one that’s buried under all the piles of stress and worries. Use this time to go on a self discovery. Cliched as it may sound, use this time for yourself, and ease yourself into doing the things you like, doing things you need to do (but have alway put off), doing things that will help you improve, that will keep you sane, that will make you the better version of you. And hey you don’t have to go at this alone, you will always have someone who will lend a helping hand, if you just reach out and take it.

So in the end, when you don’t let it get under your skin, you can make it better, cause you can always take a sad song and make it better. You just have to go out and get her. What do you say Jude!