It all starts with the person in the mirror
By Ryan Dahlman
This has been a historical time of social, economic and political upheaval that no one has been immune from in generations. It has mostly been a challenge.
There has been extreme examples of greed, selfishness and grotesque opportunism as groceries and certain paper products have been flying off shelves in extreme numbers as those people are either self-hoarding or finding a way to resell the good they purchased for a higher price. As people become more desperate financially, you would think criminal activity would go up.
Those who have mental illness or are somehow disadvantaged are finding it even more challenging to cope with the emotional strain on a variety of levels caused by this pandemic. Senior care homes are on health lock down. Children aren’t in school. How do they cope? Schools provided an escape from perhaps some difficulties at home (lack of food; lack of care, abuse). After school childcare is now an unexpected issue.
Adults are losing their jobs. Some in the medical or service field are in the line of COVID-19’s fire.
A lot of societal recreational escapes are gone with sports, organized activities and events all halted. Restaurants (other than take out) and bars are even closed.
It is all extremely overwhelming as we struggle to figure out what to do next.
First thing we can do is stop, breathe. No sugar coating a difficult situation. And while it would be glib to say that this was inevitable or “it is all for the best somehow”. It is painful to listen to the whiny prognosticators who are experts on absolutely everything tell us this is a correction on society and the world much like stock brokers call stock market crashes “market corrections”.
All we can do is control on how we react to the situation no matter how difficult it is.
Clear mind. Even-keeled thinking to whatever problem or issue one has is better than panicking.
Maybe it will hurt, be painful in many respects but we somehow need to find a way through. Find inner strength, creative thinking because there’s no other choice. There isn’t.
Maybe years from now, we will look back on March and find the changes we were forced to make worked out for the best or perhaps we made some not so prudent choices. Regardless of the direction life took, we can all say “hindsight being 2020…”