Most of us approach life in a very linear way; it appears to be moving us forward. It’s as if we’re all on a long moving sidewalk, like those in large airports. Some of us stand, some walk. We really don’t contemplate the choice before we step on – habits take over. Kids will try to playfully race against it, carefree and unencumbered by baggage, smiling when they get back to the point at which they entered. Some just stand on the side and watch people go by; a metaphor for watching life pass before their eyes. It really doesn’t matter what we do while on it, or so we think; it moves us forward nonetheless.
Until it stops, unexpectedly. CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE TO CONTINUE READING.
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Like what the novel coronavirus did to us eight months ago. To get off the now-stopped moving sidewalk, some of us walk back to the beginning, hoping for a quick return to normal. Some plow forward bumping into those just standing there waiting and hoping for it to start back up. Some climb over the rail annoyed at the inconvenience. Its jarring stop caused us all to change. Our human programming for handling this change and its bigger brother – transition - has been developed and honed in this “moving forward” mindset practiced throughout our lives. Few of us have had to recalibrate to a new starting point. And, rarely if at all, have we humans experienced a simultaneous shifting of the bedrock under us, like tectonic plates shifting and somehow transporting us to a different time. So, now that it’s happened, where are we? If we don’t consciously think about it, those habitual responses for dealing with changes will kick in and we’ll do what our past experiences predispose us to do; that which we’ve always done. We’ll just find a way to carry on and maybe even thrive in this new abnormal. We’ll move forward. But, should we? Has this shifting bedrock given us an impetus to reorient or realign our position? Has what we value most changed at all? Certainly, what we think about throughout these days has changed dramatically. But has it caused us to think differently, to see things differently, to make some real changes in our lives, to focus on what really is important and worthy to us? Have we learned that what seemed comfortable and familiar may not be for our greater good? Have any of us had the realization or insight that the choices or decisions we’ve made all along aren’t working anymore and maybe never did, maybe never will? Has it taught us the simple lesson that we really are not in control and can’t control everything… if anything? Do we have the courage, the confidence to make the changes we so desperately want to make undaunted by what others think or what their expectations of us might be? And if so, how will our actions and decisions reflect the changes we think we’ve made? Will they reinforce or refute them? Will others see this change in us? Will we be authentic to our recalibrated selves? This era has given us the perfect justification – “2020 has caused me to rethink what’s important to me in my life, provided a pause from normal in order to fully contemplate it, and enabled me to access the courage, the commitment and the responsibility to myself to act on it. This is now me.” They say that “change creates possibility”. Maybe it’s also true that impossibility creates change. |