I’m coming up on the conclusion of my fourth semester in college and I’m almost certain that I won’t experience a more unusual semester than this. As COVID-19 swept across the world, it affected everyone’s life all over the world and it all happened without any warning. One day things were normal, then the next day everything changed. Stores began closing, schools were shut down, and we were all mandated to follow a stay at home order. Just like that, life had changed. Initially, it was hard to imagine living life like this but it quickly became a new norm. On top of this, it almost feels like there’s no end in sight. It’s hard to imagine a world where we go back to everything being the way it was before any of this–at least not for a while. This just goes to show how unexpected and fast things can change. And it also serves as a lesson to every single person in the world; we are all one and we’re all in this together. There realistically is nothing that should be separating us at a time like this, but we are STILL divided and that’s what my biggest takeaway from this pandemic is.

It’s almost as if it’s in our nature to just cause trouble with each other. I’ve always grown up believing that people are inherently good and would easily recognize when to sacrifice their needs to benefit someone else, especially when the majority of people are in need. This pandemic has taught me that this isn’t entirely true. There’s a Bible verse that my mom used to recite to me and it says, “The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV). I always used to think that this was just my mom and the Bible being extra, but I feel like it really resonates with how a lot of people, especially men in power, are treating this pandemic. People are still dying and the numbers aren’t dropping, yet it seems like the government doesn’t care about that and it really does horrify me. Then there’s others that are literally protesting the lockdown just because it doesn’t suit them. It’s all really sad to see. I just hope there’s an end to all of this soon, but for that to happen, we’ve really gotta do better as a whole.