The world is looking like it is more and more up against something really big and daunting with this Coronavirus that is spreading right now. I am not a smart enough man to predict how any of this may land. I might lose a lot of family and friends, and I may not. That seems to be a part of being in a pandemic, you don’t know how things will shake out. I feel like I am standing watching an approaching storm. The clouds are black, the wind is blowing, and it is uncertain how bad exactly this might be. In a person’s life they only see so many bad storms. These storms are moments that define us. How we react and what we do during these times are moments that reveal our values. We are looking at a coming storm, for some of us the storm has arrived, the question we must ask is “Now what?”
I won’t provide any answers here, I’m not smart enough to have those. Everyone’s situation is vastly different and will necessitate different actions. I have isolated and pretty much quarantined myself. This wasn’t hard for me. I spend most of my time alone anyways right now. I will just do my writing from my parent’s house rather than from the library. I cannot pass judgement or suggestions onto people that have a lot more going on with their lives. It does feel to me we are standing before a pivotal time.
I have wondered before how many of these times in our lives do we get? Sometimes men are sent off to war, those are pivotal times. Accidents and illnesses can be the same way on a much smaller scale globally but are still huge for the people they directly impact. Meeting your spouse is a far more positive example of these important times. I feel like these times are the ones that really shape our story and legacy.
How we react and what we do in these times are the makings of story and legacies. In fifty years our grandchildren may be asking what we did during this time. I don’t say this to try and inspire anything. This might not be a time to take drastic inspired action. It’s probably more of a time to stay home and quarantine. To be honest we might not even get a chance to take much action. We might just get to sit at home and ride this out. Sometimes the best action that can be taken is no action at all. We might get a chance to help a neighbor out or something like that, all our situations will be different. So this is probably not the time to hold rallies and march in the streets, but there could be other things we can do.
We can forgive, we can reach out, and we can improve during our exiles. If we’re able maybe we should forgive debts until after this pandemic has passed. Your neighbor that owes you money might need that 200 dollars a lot more than you right now. Most of us have a lot of communications technology, so we should reach out to people and make them feel less isolated. We can learn new things during this time. I know I have a lot of reading and learning goals to catch up on. Mostly we can use this time to do things we’re proud of in some way. If this thing goes as bad for as long as it could, this will be important.
There is no way today to really know how long this will last. I am losing hope that this will pass quickly. We can only do the best we can with each day and go from there. We must consider though where this time and where these moments sit within our life. The things we do in the coming days will matter a lot. Even if all we do is quarantine at home and help stop the spread of this virus, that is a legacy worth having. This will not be over in the next few days. We have time to sit and ponder how we should react. I do believe this is likely going to be a pivotal time period in our lives, we should recognize that, and act accordingly.