Quarantine Tape

Today’s post is more of a personal post, with a bit of insight into human nature – particularly human nature related to business, employment, and working – and a couple links to external resources I picked up from Namecheap at the end.  The so-called “Novel” Coronavirus, which started in China and was supposedly a “joke”* back in January,** is now known to the world – and no one is laughing now (well, except for maybe some of the real “hard-liners,” I guess). What a long, strange trip it's been - and it isn't over yet!
 
I have spent the past 2 and a half months inside my apartment, or very close thereto!  In January 2020, the world watched YouKu and BiliBili videos of people in China going crazy from self-isolation in their homes as the Lock Downs and Social Distancing Programs began with full-force right off the bat in China.  The world had a mixed response.  Some praised China for their efforts; many just laughed.  Now, as the Lock Downs start (controversially) coming to an end here in China, us over here in China are watching people in The Americas, Europe, and other parts of the world start to go crazy in self-isolation on YouTube.  The limited excursions I have made outside of the physical confines of my apartment walls within the past 2 and a half months have mostly been within the apartment  complex itself (90% of all my outdoor excursions, mostly for jogging in the late afternoons/evenings), to the nearby river just 100 yards from the complex wall once they opened it up just three weeks ago to residents in our complex to go to without having to show our Health Pass to get to, or out to the junction with the main road at the end of the driveway/entry road to our complex to collect package deliveries.  There have only been a very small handful of sojourns beyond that, but precious few and far between.  For example, there was the time I went out to actually get my Health Pass - the "Suzhou Health Code", as they call it where I live.  That was a saga in and of itself that unfolded over the course of two days!
 
You see, I had gotten a new passport since the last time I entered China, so had a brand, spankin' new passport with a visa in it (that I had gotten transferred from my old one), but no entry stamp for entering the country (that was ONLY in the old passport).  I had my old passport there with me at the government office, too - my father-in-law actually drove back home to get it for me once we figured out we needed it, bless his soul - but there were still a lot of confused people and a computer system not set up to handle a "special case" like such .
 
Some insight into work and business I have gained through all of this: not everyone enjoys the idea of "working from home"!  For as much as you have seen this so-called “gold standard” of an ideal spread across the Internet since the birth of the Internet 3 decades ago, the fact is that many people despise the idea of working independently or autonomously and arranging – to varying degrees – their own time and schedules.  As my readers know by now, this has been a common and recurring theme in my posts for the past 12-18 months anyway, as it was at about that point in time in my own life that I really started to appreciate on a deeper level how true this is in the world we live in.  Again, as I have also stressed in my previous posts, this is not a criticism, just the facts as I have observed them; and the Coronavirus Pandemic has shown this to the world by shoving it right in front of everyone’s faces!
 
At this point, we can all see very quickly now that not everyone enjoys the work-from-home lifestyle.  It just isn’t the “thing” that many people are looking for.  Many people actually enjoy that outside force of being “told what to do” and having to “go to work and do their jobs” that employment gives them.  I say “enjoy,” but I guess that is not really the best way to describe it.  A better way to put it is that they are at least comfortable with it and it feels like “just the way things should be in a ‘normal’ life” to them.  They may SAY they don’t like it, but deep down inside, many of those people really wouldn’t have it any other way.  Now, of course, SOME of them say they don’t like it and they really, truly don’t like it, and look for ways to actively get away from it, that is true!  These are the people who really have the potential to go out and become entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, small business owners, people who “do it for themselves” etc. at some point in their lives.
 
Right now is a GREAT time for those who truly want to take the plunge into breaking away from the 9-to-5 and “going out and doing it on their own”.....but it’s also a time when people who are not into that kind of thing are starting to panic.
 
My advice: if you are one of those people who have been dying for years to “do your own moneymaking thing,” this is a perfect time to start looking for the just the right moment to “pull the trigger,” if you will.  The world is changing in one those rare moments of mass turmoil that only come but a small handful of times in a life time for most people.
 
I end this post today with some pictures I took near the end of last week when my family and I started to get out and about a little bit more around the neighborhood: some of the last vestiges of quarantine tape around my apartment complex and immediate neighborhood.
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*At least that’s the way so much of the world seemed to look at it at the time!

**Actually in December 2019, but none of us “commoners” here in Eastern China knew that during Chinese New Year in January 2020 when Lock Downs started.
 
Here’s to new business ventures and a happy, healthy life as the world “re-boots” itself!  Stay safe out there, and stay tuned for another interview coming soon to this blog!

And, as promised, here are those links to the Namecheap blog:

How To Turn A Side Hustle Into Your Dream Business

The 6 Habits of a Successful Solopreneur

 -Andreas
Owner and operator of Biz Opp Empire, a website by Andreas Philip Gross Enterprises

Check out the Quarantine Tape pictures below
(Photos taken the Week of March 16-20 in Kunshan, Jiangsu, P.R.C.)
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