COVID19 | Dad's Back

Back Down the Road… There

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Hal Edghill

As the light starts to glimmer in this tunnel called the pandemic, I am finding many of us changed by the experiences of the last year. Some of us are still frightened to death of being frightened to death, and some of us now see the world differently from before the beginning of the journey.

We survived.

I like to think of it as pragmatic but survivor-ship confers a special quality to our outlook on Life. Not quite cynicism but something with a definite sarcastic flavor.

We are all tired from this long journey called COVID-19, yet we are not ready to set down our luggage just yet.

money in a mask — Image by Wilfried Pohnke from Pixabay

Big Disappointments

I am the proverbial optimist. That glass bubbles half full most all of the time for me but during this pandemic, my experience of people has tempered my view.

After witnessing so many poor and self-serving behaviors by so many individuals this last year, especially those in positions of authority in society, I have revised down many of my estimations of character for folks I once held in much higher regard.

COVID pushed all of us out of our comfort zones. I just did not expect to see so many individuals break and run.

I am still a proud human being and I have grown from these difficult times. I am just a little reluctant to place all of my faith in others right now.

Transformation Happens

I still found redemption of my old views in the exceptional behaviors of a few leaders who determined a path and stayed the course. Courageous acts have surely occurred, though each of these individuals have struggled under social pressure to conform to the popular story-line of fear and more fear.

I always thought that peer pressure and group-think were remnants of adolescence. I stand corrected.

Growing through experiences of challenge is one thing. Caregivers do that every day. Watching someone else struggling publicly with challenges is different.

We have been struggling together at the same time as each person has worked to respond to upheavals in our lifestyles. I had gotten comfortable stepping up and handling difficulties without any audience. Managing crisis as a worldwide group has certainly been different. It has been more… real.

woman standing on road — Photo by Athena on Pexels.com

Fork in the Road

There is a speed to change. We now know that this speed can vary according to circumstances.

The funny part is that no matter how fast or how slow, the change still arrives in our laps. How we respond to that change is more telling about our true character than a whole list of noble accomplishments and awards.

All of us are now arriving at a personal place where we have an important choice to make. It is not the groups we identify with or our outward appearance. We have to choose the character we want to be.

COVID has provided us with a big reset button for society. By virtue of coming through the experience alive, we are changed in some fundamental ways. We are not the same people with the same outlooks on Life we were a year ago.

We have learned of new attitudes from our experiences and observations. Ideas of division and destruction are suddenly as readily available and popular as traditional values of integrity and love for one another. Tough choice. The challenge lies in the lasting value of those decisions.

We now know that we are not indestructible nor immortal. We are however resilient and stronger than we thought.

Let’s choose wisely.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Stylishly Coping with COVID-19 Uncertainty

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Hal Edghill

Here’s the scene. You are facing a life-and-death situation in which you are suddenly in charge of people’s lives and livelihoods. You have no training for the situation and no help appears to be on the way. You have no real authority but full responsibility. Resources are limited to only what you have at hand. You don’t know what you’re doing. You are overwhelmed and yet you must still move on.

Sounds like the script idea for any number of Hollywood productions over the years, right? This scenario of uncertainty fits any number of our government and political leaders in recent months. It also fits caregivers every day.

Gracefully handling uncertainty is surely a hallmark of caregivers. Like accomplished gamblers, pursuing with confidence and revealing little, we traverse uncharted territory with hardly an outward indication that we are no more knowledgeable about what is coming than the next person. We don’t behave recklessly. We just understand that not knowing is as good a place to be when we don’t have any other options.

Reckless Uncertainty

Enter the pandemic of COVID-19. Talk about uncertainty. Leaders providing confused leadership, if any at all. Words being weaponized and used to no particularly useful ends. Science being adopted and discarded at will. I have never seen so many frightened people before.

As this confused world so threatens our personal sanity and security, why am I still feeling so fairly relaxed? I’m bummed because some of the shops I enjoy are not as physically accessible but hey, there’s still online, right? Popular media indicates I should be stressed out and seeking help (spending money) for my victim-hood. Being comfortable is apparently politically incorrect these days. I’m good with that.

The scale of the pandemic has been new but the crisis intervention state of mind needed to respond constructively to it, has been kind of old news. Learn what you can about the situation/problem, see what resources you have at hand, go forward with your best guess of appropriate action. Repeat. Who would have thought that knowing how to manage difficult times at home would be such a useful skill set for managing poor policy in response to a global problem?

Let me qualify that. Not all leadership has had problems with… well… leading, but the successful ones have been overshadowed by the poor decisions of lesser ones. What’s the right answer? What’s the wrong answer? With so many folks appointing themselves knowledgeable leaders and issuing orders haphazardly, is it any wonder we’ve lost much forward momentum on solutions?

Moments of Reflection

With some extra time on my hands for reflection, I am seeing that this is all a caregiving scenario – just on a much larger scale. Known and unknown parameters playing out at what seems high speed, with important stakes at risk. Just a familiar caregiving scenario set on an unfamiliar worldwide stage.

There is something comforting in knowing that problems that play out globally are in essence the problems that play out at home. Taking care of one another, especially when one cannot adequately care for themselves, is comforting. Across all of these anxious racial, cultural, and political divides we have suffered recently, a constant of human experience continues to abide. We truly are alike in so many ways, both in how we seek joy in Life and how we respond to threats to that joy. Our methods may vary but we all protect and safeguard our vulnerable ones in times of uncertainty. We all step up and do what we have to. Plenty of bad actors will be around to grab attention and play up their own insecurities. The rest of us will be settled in for the duration, knowing that we’ve got control of ourselves when circumstances are ambiguous.

So, when risk-adverse colleagues and friends heave that deep sigh and bemoan their dramatic survivor-ship of this whole tragic scenario, smile and be supportive. Speak from your place of strength because that is where you live. You have worked your way through tougher circumstances before and the current situation is no more or less challenging. Just try not to laugh about it too much. People in uncertain times lack a certain sense of humor.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.

― Gilda Radner