Welcome to a new age in history, the age of COVID-19. Obviously, this is something most of us have never really faced in our lifetimes. And the uncertainty and lack of clear direction from authorities can be unsettling. As the son of medical professionals, I have never been one to panic about getting sick. Oh, I hate it. I dread it, but I don’t walk around afraid of every cough or germ or handshake, and nothing has changed with this new threat. I also grew up believing God is in control and so I tend to believe what’s meant to happen will, and that means if I am destined to get sick, I probably will, so stressing about it isn’t going to get me anywhere. Oh, I can do what I can to avoid it. And take appropriate car and precautions. But losing sleep over it or having emotional upset just isn’t me.
Some of you aren’t that way, and I feel for you. People respond differently to different things and in times of stress or uncertainty. I tend to use humor like I do with everything else and the era of Fake News has made me even more of a skeptic and questioner than I was before so I question everything and don’t buy theories or rumors or even he first “fact sheet” I read. I do the research and then decide what followed the consensus and makes the most sense and react accordingly.
Whatever your situation, my hope for you—besides the obvious of good health bodily and financially through this challenging time—is that you will use the time to grow either by stimulating your mind (reading, movies, audiobooks, and so on), spending time with family, or by setting goals and working on projects you’ve been putting off but always wanted to accomplish. Making lemonade from life’s lemons is kinda my way, and whether or not it’s yours, I encourage you to consider giving it a try while you are quarantined or find yourself with extra time.
Sometimes change, as much as we humans tend to dislike it, can be good for us—just the thing to stimulate new ideas or open new opportunities and so on. You never know ‘til it happens, but what can it hurt?
Whatever you do with yourself, please don’t be selfish or inconsiderate of the rest of us. Toilet paper hoarding and so on is harmful to everyone who isn’t able to do that—poor people like me for example—and sometimes those most vulnerable during a crisis. It’s also selfish to the business forced to shut doors or change business practices that you now can’t patronize because you spent a fortune on hoarding stuff you could replace easily in a week or two if you needed it and used common sense. Most of all, please wash hands and follow the discipline of social distancing because if you don’t get sick, you can still be a carrier and it’s 3 people per carrier and only 17 steps to millions in that contact stream. That’s right, the statistics say your 3 infected will each infect 3 and so on until within 17 steps, 14.3 million have been infected all because of you. So that’s some scary stuff. Let’s do what we can to mitigate it, and to be considerate and take care of each other.
It may be our last chance with some, and with others, do you really want to be remembered as the selfish hoarder or the kind, considerate good citizen? Also, please support authors, artists, and vendors who have lost their income stream with cons and events and tours and so on shutting down. Most of us live hand to mouth and are really struggling, and you will need something to entertain you while you’re stuck at home. (Provided you have money left after all the hoarding).
Take care of yourselves most of all and be good. Most of all, try and keep your sense of humor. It’s healthy to laugh.