Virus can spur people to make the world a better place
Atime like this reminds us forcefully that there are some things we can and should control, and other things we cannot control that we have to accept or let go with equanimity if we are not to drive ourselves crazy.
Reinhold Niebuhr captured this well in his Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
These are not fixed categories. One of the gifts of the coronavirus has been ordinary people in business and communities finding they can do extraordinary things in a short time.
Many have enlarged their “circle of influence” to be nearer their “circle of concern”, to use author Stephen Covey’s terms. Maybe a lasting benefit from this testing time will be ordinary people discovering their extraordinary capacity for compassion, and their ability to organise and get things done to make a difference to the world around them. May this survive the pandemic!
As individuals we are both incredibly puny in the face of natural and social forces we have no influence over, and amazingly powerful if we can summon the courage to tackle the things we can influence.
Some philosophies and religions teach that suffering can be a portal to peace. That ’ s not the suffering of others, but embracing our own suffering, accepting that we are puny, and intentionally letting go of our impossible efforts to be immortal. That’s half of wisdom. It’s what many thousands of people around the world need as they are wheeled into the intensive care unit, or watch helplessly as a loved one is wheeled away.
And it is what thousands of entrepreneurs face as they watch their creations fall away.
For them there is wisdom in letting go.
In business it is not good strategy to pour resources into a dream that has died.
The other half of wisdom is discovering just how powerful we are in changing ourselves and influencing others if we have the courage to step out. Some citizens of Bedfordview, for example, are discovering this as they stagger home each day exhausted, having solicited tonnes of food and distributed it to hungry people.
In an inspiring story that I know is repeated in different forms all over the country, they have in a matter of days created an organisation, obtained permits, found needy communities, and co-ordinated volunteers to achieve what would have seemed quite impossible a month ago. Thank God for WhatsApp.
As many are now pointing out, a choice facing us is what to restore when some semblance of normality returns, and what to change. Can we take this opportunity to create something new? This arises in our personal lives, in our businesses and globally as humanity.
At the intertwined levels of business and ourselves, what do you want your business to look like in the future? What is its purpose? What is your purpose?
Now that we have the opportunity to press reset in our lives and businesses, do we have the courage to do so? Can we accept our limitations, embrace the end to our ego and give up those dreams that now seem so insignificant amid lifeand-death concerns, to summon the courage to create something of greater value?
This may be in business, and/or personal growth, personal relationships, taking delight in the children or developing greater empathy with those who do the tasks you have found yourself doing now at home. What a time to become simpler and adopt that laser-like focus on what is essential, which leads sometimes to achievement and always to contentment.
Cook, a former director of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, is co-founder and chair of the African Management Institute.