With the schools and colleges closed yet again, the excitement of studying and learning has just disappeared from out lives. No one feels like studying with the uncertainty in the dates of the Board Exams and the Entrance Exams. However, just because one does not have the mood to study, DOES NOT mean that he/she should while away their time doing nothing or simply scrolling down the endless You Tube or Instagram feed. Time is indeed very precious, and it should not be wasted away like that.

Many people will argue that looking at memes makes their mood better, distracts them from the present troubles. I strongly agree with you all, but having done the same myself, I know that even this activity becomes boring after some time, and if this phase hasn’t come to you already, then I think you utilized the Lockdown period of the year 2020, doing productive things and that’s great!

If someone, our parents, teachers, grandparents, relatives, just anyone, asks us to keep the phone/laptop aside and do something else, we often tend to ask this one question, ‘What should I do?’ It happens a lot of time that no one has an answer to it or maybe they have, but of course not everything they say is interesting or worth the trouble of getting up, isn’t it?

I know how boring the Indian Education System is (and we may discuss it in future in detail!) How we are forced to just mug up irrelevant stuff and just spit it out on the answer sheet in the exam, to get good grades, which apparently ‘makes out future bright’! What some wise person made me realize is that just mugging up stuff won’t help you if you are stuck on an abandoned Island somewhere in the middle of the sea! The Boards Marksheet and the College Degree won’t save you in such a situation! In any way, I DO NOT mean to say that they don’t matter. Good grades are like oxygen for our survival in this society, but there are things that matter much more. They are Life Skills! Skill is what will help you move ahead.

Many of you might have faced this situation during the lockdown period where the cooks and the maids were not coming to work as a safety measure against the virus, you had a loaded kitchen, but did not know how to cook for yourself. I don’t know how many of you hate that feeling of dependence, where you can’t just survive for a few days on your own. This indeed made many people to learn how to cook and do the house cleaning and stuff. These are example of Life Skills! The skills which you need to survive!

So, here I have an answer to the question, ‘What should I do?’ Invest your time in learning the basic life skills, if you haven’t already. If you already have the basic skills up your sleeve, there is still a lot to learn out there. I said learn, not mug up! Learning has a deeper meaning than just mugging up. There are still many more skills that one can learn. But not every skill is relevant for everyone. Its right time to find your interests, discover your passions and work towards them. The Internet homes a wide network of platforms which help you in the development of the skills required to pursue your passion!

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it, keep looking. Don’t settle."
- Steve Jobs

This quote by Steve Jobs, co-founder of the company Apple Inc., might not be very relevant to you right now, but just think about it. If you haven’t already selected your career, then this time is a golden opportunity for you all to find your passion and explore the various career options associated with it. In case you are among those who are unable to do what you are passionate about due to whatever reasons, its alright, you are not alone. Many people are unable to pursue a career in their field of interest. So, you all can try learning more about your career fields, maybe some skill related to it, cause one thing I can say with full surety is that once you do in depth study about a certain topic and when you start doing good at it, be it a test or some assignments or any sort of work, you start enjoying that thing! So try utilizing this time to your advantage and get some useful skills up your sleeve!

This does not mean, how-so-ever, that you should spend ALL the time for this. Definitely not! Too much of anything won’t keep you entertained for long and very soon you will start getting bored of it. Instead of that, decide on the amount of time you will spend for this purpose and the rest you can do whatever you like, like social media or gaming. Yep! I said gaming.

Gaming is one word that I recently grew hatred towards (personal and irrelevant reasons.) So I am choosing to use the phrase ‘playing games’ instead of gaming. So yeah, you can of course play games, there is no harm in that, AS LONG AS you don’t get addicted to it. Playing games is a good stress buster for many and playing games like the PUBG (local substitutes of it obviously since the game is banned in India at present) and Minecraft (via online multiplayer servers) help in socializing in these times without any risk of infection. I personally don’t prefer or recommend any type of game involving severe violence cause it is a widely talked upon fact that violent games are very addictive, although I do not have any idea about the correctness of this fact, nor do I wish to get involved in any debate of such kind.

To summarize it all, all I want to say is that you should do everything! Try everything and this includes the curriculum based study. I hate it as well, but it is something that we possibly can’t do anything about, at least not for us. The NEP 2020 (National Education Policy 2020) may take the currently boring education to a new level, which includes more of useful practical learning.

Thanks...