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I was talking today to someone coming up for the first time against the fact that the pandemic is, incontrovertibly, not under their control. That is not a fun realization. It tempts one to grasp even harder for control, but the only way I have only ever found comforting or helpful was reaching out to 15) Find something bigger than you to put your faith in.
If you're religious in the right way, this is fairly straightforward. God/s/the Divine/etc has a reason for allowing /causing this to happen, and will make everything turn out okay in the end. (The internet insists that it was John Lennon who said "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."). If this is your worldview, then I highly recommend spending some time praying.
If you don't believe in that kind of god, it can be a little more challenging, but there are still plenty of things bigger than you. You can have faith in your family, or your community. You can have faith in love, or stories, or in Life Finding A Way. You can have faith in scientific progress. You can even have faith in a political party, though neither of the major American ones are giving me much to base that on lately.
The point is to have something to look to when you reach the end of your resources, something that can do what you can't. You know that you, personally, can do your very best to stop the spread of the virus, and to take care of the people around you, and you also know that your best efforts will not save everybody. But you know that it's not all on you, and that there are more powerful forces at work.
Personally, I'm putting my faith in the human determination to Fix It. I know that this will not solve everything, that it has already let so many people die, and will not prevent the suffering and death of many more. But I talk to doctors, and nurses, and first responders, and they are scared and tired (and would very much like better pay and more PPE, please), but they are so determined to get out there and help. They talk with so much frustration when they're not able to be on the frontlines, because they see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really, really make things better.
And I look around the streets, and see people putting on masks-- hell, people stopping a whole economy-- to protect people who are vulnerable. It was more impressive in the beginning, when we believed that younger people without an underlying medical condition absolutely couldn't die of Covid-19, but even now; most of us, I think, are driven much more by a desire to save others from the illness than to save ourselves. We all have someone we care about in a vulnerable population, or many someones, and we are all willing to turn our lives upside-down to keep them safe.
Or look at everyone making masks, or uploading inspirational and educational Youtube videos, or raising money to feed hungry kids no longer being fed by schools, or checking on their neighbors, or figuring out how to 3D print N95 masks, or having block parties from their front stoops, or writing to their elected representatives, or having really unfortunate incidents with magnets in an effort to help people stop touching their faces. Or or or or or.
The whole entire world, right now, is united in being quite upset about the pandemic. And maybe not every single person, but so, so many of us are trying to figure out how we can help.
It's not going to solve everything, but it's enough to let me rest when I'm tired, and know that someone else is carrying the torch until I can get up again. I hope you all can also find something like that to let you get some rest.
--R
If you're religious in the right way, this is fairly straightforward. God/s/the Divine/etc has a reason for allowing /causing this to happen, and will make everything turn out okay in the end. (The internet insists that it was John Lennon who said "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."). If this is your worldview, then I highly recommend spending some time praying.
If you don't believe in that kind of god, it can be a little more challenging, but there are still plenty of things bigger than you. You can have faith in your family, or your community. You can have faith in love, or stories, or in Life Finding A Way. You can have faith in scientific progress. You can even have faith in a political party, though neither of the major American ones are giving me much to base that on lately.
The point is to have something to look to when you reach the end of your resources, something that can do what you can't. You know that you, personally, can do your very best to stop the spread of the virus, and to take care of the people around you, and you also know that your best efforts will not save everybody. But you know that it's not all on you, and that there are more powerful forces at work.
Personally, I'm putting my faith in the human determination to Fix It. I know that this will not solve everything, that it has already let so many people die, and will not prevent the suffering and death of many more. But I talk to doctors, and nurses, and first responders, and they are scared and tired (and would very much like better pay and more PPE, please), but they are so determined to get out there and help. They talk with so much frustration when they're not able to be on the frontlines, because they see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really, really make things better.
And I look around the streets, and see people putting on masks-- hell, people stopping a whole economy-- to protect people who are vulnerable. It was more impressive in the beginning, when we believed that younger people without an underlying medical condition absolutely couldn't die of Covid-19, but even now; most of us, I think, are driven much more by a desire to save others from the illness than to save ourselves. We all have someone we care about in a vulnerable population, or many someones, and we are all willing to turn our lives upside-down to keep them safe.
Or look at everyone making masks, or uploading inspirational and educational Youtube videos, or raising money to feed hungry kids no longer being fed by schools, or checking on their neighbors, or figuring out how to 3D print N95 masks, or having block parties from their front stoops, or writing to their elected representatives, or having really unfortunate incidents with magnets in an effort to help people stop touching their faces. Or or or or or.
The whole entire world, right now, is united in being quite upset about the pandemic. And maybe not every single person, but so, so many of us are trying to figure out how we can help.
It's not going to solve everything, but it's enough to let me rest when I'm tired, and know that someone else is carrying the torch until I can get up again. I hope you all can also find something like that to let you get some rest.
--R
