It’s kind of amazing how a few weeks can alter your perception of something.
For example, just one month ago, many adults were dreading getting up early each morning to go to work. But now, most of those people would be thrilled to get a call and be told that their job was waiting. And all they needed to do was arrive Monday morning and pick up where they left off.
That same month convinced children everywhere that going to school each day is really not such a bad thing. Yes, there is work to do and lessons to learn. But there is also time to spend with friends and activates to keep you occupied.
And think about all of the things that we were complaining about a month or two ago. Traffic, a long line at the grocery store checkout, too many errands to run on the weekend, or not enough time to visit with family and friends. Those don’t seem as important when you are looking at news reports of people with no food, businesses failing, and everyone asked to stay at home to protect their health.
So maybe hindsight is part of the secret here. But another critical piece of the puzzle is grasping that there was a lot to love about our beautifully imperfect world. And even though it was not perfect, it was pretty great. So when we are all free to gather and return to a more normal daily life, we should appreciate our imperfect world rather than cursing it.
Beautiful piece, gratitude must always be in our hearts, minds, and soul. I pray after we survive this crisis and found how strong and resilient we are, gratitude will be our best friend. Being alive is the first thing to be grateful for. Then start living, giving, sharing, loving, forgiving, understanding, and going back to humanity.
This is an absolutely spot-on, terrific post, Kathy! Yes, we are perfectly imperfect. None of us is 100 percent right or wrong about anything because we are a diverse country and world and species. There’s a wonderful quote by William James that says, “The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” Perhaps, after reading your post, we can all better appreciate how things were “back then” before COVID-19, and when we return there, or a “new normal” since life goes forward, not backward, we can think, speak and act with more consciousness about our ability to create our own reality. If we want a more peaceful, just, sustainable and prosperous world, then we have it in our power to individually and collectively create one!