Will you be ready when the world reopens?
The seminal quote from Chaos Theorist Dr. Ian Malcom about life is fiction. Fiction in the sense that Dr. Malcom is a fictional character created by Author Michael Crichton. It’s true though.
Life finds a way through every single time. No matter what.
Many of us are feeling lost, confused, and overwhelmed right now for many different reasons. Maybe, you are concerned about your health or that of a family member. Maybe, you’re concerned about your job and paying your bills. Maybe, you just can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel right now.
You are not alone. We are all struggling in ways the others know not. But life always finds a way to keep moving forward and today is no different.
When Dr. Malcom says “Life finds a way”, he was speaking about the ability of dinosaurs at Jurassic Park finding a way to reproduce when they were genetically engineered to not. I’m using the quote in the context of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Our lives will find a way to continue on just as lives continued after previous pandemics. The Black Death, the Spanish Flu, Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793, American polio epidemic: 1916, and more recently SARS and Zika, are all examples of global health crisis. Every single one of them ran their course and life continued.
Covid-19 will, in it’s time, run it’s course. I’m not saying moving forward will be easy or quick. All indications in across the United States point to painful months ahead.
But we can’t wait for it to run its course. If we do, we are going to be just as lost and bewildered as we are today.
Instead, you should be out learning new skills wherever you can. Helping sick or invalid people, who can’t help themselves is a great way to learn something. Why not coach a high school or collage student thought the pandemic?
We a living a profound history every day these past few months. 50 years from now, kids will be learning about these months in their history classes. And when your kids ask what you did during the Covid-19 crisis, are you going to tell them you binge watched TV while collecting unemployment. “Son, let me tell you about the Tiger King…”
For me, I want to be able to tell my son it was a tough time and we didn’t know what was going to happen. Though, we were scared, we tried to make life better for everyone. Mom sewed masks, and keep dad on track. With Mom’s help, dad stayed on track and started learning new skills that he could use to make him more value at work.
We made more time for our family. We called them more and visited as often as we could and while being safe. Our new family grew together.( we’re married less that 2 years and have a 10 month old baby at the time of this writing.) Watching my son reach milestone after milestone during quarantine has be a blessing.
When my son is old enough to understand this pandemic, I will tell him this pandemic changed lives. And every one who survived was changed forever. Your choice is how you want to change.
Life will find a way to get us past this pandemic sooner or later. Are you going to be ready to hit the ground running? Or are you going to be playing catch up? Time to get off the couch, turn off the TV, and PIVOT.