Maybe you’re already locked down where you are, or you soon will be. The world has changed, life for a great many has changed, everything is different now whether you realize it or not. How you deal with these changes may not be under your control. Hopefully it is, and all this chaos becomes a faded memory a year from now. For now, it is right in front of us, and some outcomes may not be too pleasant.
It’s one thing to be told that you can work from home, it’s another thing to be told that you can’t leave your home – of course, there are a few necessary traveling limitations which would allow some movement between sites providing essential services. Those who provide or support these essential services will be allowed to commute to their work locations – for now, provided they don’t impose a health risk to themselves or others. Going out for food or medicine, or even for hardware materials for your home appears to be fair game for now.
The lights are still on, the Internet appears to be holding up OK for the most part. Water, fuel, and food are still available even with the run on grocery stores that has been happening over the last two weeks. These are all positives. Social distancing, which would be better characterized as physical distancing and proper hygiene are supposed to be our best defense or at least a way to buy time until a solution or remedy is available for the virus.
I hope you are where you want to be for a while. If you’re stuck somewhere away from home or your family, I hope it isn’t for too long.
It’s interesting that this has happened in a time where communication is at a point where we have the technology for many people to telecommute, communicate via a handheld device, and report from many locations around the world. This probably has contributed to some of the panic and anxiety many are experiencing.
The loss of jobs, gig related work, businesses, and negative impact from the hit the economy is and will continue to take for a while will change many lives. What’s much worse will be the loss of life, health complications, and the toll this will take on families and relationships.
When this is finally over, will we have learned anything to prevent or better deal with another similar worldwide disaster – whether it be natural or man-made? This isn’t the first pandemic or plague, and it probably won’t be the last. We may even see such events become more frequent.
You can blame whoever you wish, and you would probably be wrong. You could blame politics, big business, global warming, aliens from outer space, the earth, chance, or even God. I will contribute this to chance. It happened, and it happened many times before long ago, and it will happen again.
Whatever reason you choose to believe you most likely can’t control.
What you can do though is learn to enjoy the good times, and prepare for the bad. In the meantime, I would suggest learning how to fix stuff, and how to make stuff you or others can use. Take time to enjoy just being.
figure out what’s really important to you, and consider this a second chance to figure out how to slow down. A skill not many have mastered.