To judge or not to judge — that is the COVID-19 pandemic question plaguing me
To judge or not to judge … that is my question. During this time of COVID-19, I find myself having to both assimilate and accommodate the actions of others or having to react and communicate my thinking. As I have gotten older, I have worked very hard at not being judgmental, not allowing my visceral reactions to affect my outward presentation of my ideas, not being defensive or reactive. And yet, I feel that I am not being socially responsible if I simply remain silent. I am seeking a balance. I don’t want to shrink myself just to accommodate others, and the bottom line for me is that it is important to be a participant and not just a spectator.
As Ontario “opens up” during this month of May 2020, I find my anxiety increasing. I see news reports about blatant disregard of the physical distancing rules that have kept our society relatively safe. I see children from unrelated families playing together in my neighbourhood and lack of supervision of children in grocery stores and retail businesses. I care about these kids: there is a reason they are not in school.
I witness gatherings of more than five people in places near where I live, and see media coverage of gatherings of thousands of people. I am dumbfounded when charges are not laid for people who are gathering en masse in public spaces. On one hand, there are many businesses that are opening up who are doing the right thing and trying very hard to ensure that their staff and patrons remain safe, but, on the other hand, there are businesses that do not have enough fail-safes in place in order to ensure compliance with the ongoing social distancing rules.
I am getting tired of hearing that I must be patient or sympathetic when stupidity prevails, that we’re all “just learning” and that this will take time. Time is not a luxury that we have because if we get it wrong now, then we will be affected by this virus for a very long time. Our front-line workers who provide essential and critical services will continue to be at risk for being infected, as will their families.
My thinking is that none of us should be going out to public places without a mask and without a means to sanitize our hands. Additionally, the opening of businesses shouldn’t mean that shopping or accessing services of any kind is a free-for-all: it should still be just one member of a household, wherever possible, who enters any kind of business. Shopping should not be a family affair or a means of entertainment. It would be prudent of the government to provide all businesses with a self-checklist that they could use at the end of each business day to make judgments about how successfully they managed safety that day: no one should have to make it up as they go along.
We have six months until Christmas and many other significant celebrations. I would like to be able to see my family and friends without fear of becoming ill or making others ill once December rolls around. We absolutely must assume that we are carriers of this virus and that others are carriers of this virus. We steadfastly must behave in a way that reflects those assumptions.
Throughout the last several months, I have often said to myself, “I would like to have my life back.” I since have come to the conclusion that this IS life, just not the one that I imagined at this time. The unfortunate part about writing a piece like this is that those who really need to read it, well, they probably won’t. We have made a lot of concessions and sacrifices in the past few months. Do we really want it to be for naught? Self-indulgence will not be the quality of character that will see us through these times.
So, to judge or not to judge? Any one person’s opinion is not what should be at play here. There are objective, scientific facts to guide us. There is no need for subjective thinking to guide our decisions at this time. We need to be responsible for ourselves and toward others.
I guess it would be considered judgmental for me to disrespect others for their thinking, but I fear that I may be getting to that point.