Spreading Kindness faster than Coronavirus

The longer the lockdowns last, the more people question it and make “exceptions” and yell at each other for violating it.

It’s an odd time for all of us.

Odds are

• you will be exposed to the Coronavirus this year
• it won’t kill you, no matter your age
• it will kill people you know, probably several

What is 100% certain now is that our healthcare systems are soon to be overwhelmed. It’s already happening in places.

The lockdowns are all about lowering the odds that you & those you love will wind up needing lifesaving care when there’s not enough of it to go around.

…And you really do not want to play those odds.

Yes, it sucks

And it’s about to suck a lot harder real soon. By all informed accounts this whole situation is going to get much worse before it gets any better.

There’s no going back to the beforetimes for a quite a while. Maybe ever? Nobody knows for sure.

What then do you choose?

Because ignorance can be fatal.
Because being informed is no guarantee.
Because we know that panic compromises our immune systems.

Gratitude for the life you have is actually one of the healthiest choices for your own safety.

And kindness to others is the most useful decision you can make for everyone else’s well-being.

Respecting the lockdown is absolutely a kindness to yourself and to others. So is full quarantine, if needed.

Yet you don’t get to control what I do any more than I get to control what you do. So how about you and I stop trying to control what is an utterly out of control situation? That ship has sailed, and it was full of Coronavirus when it did.

It probably won’t be okay. But we can still be okay in the face of that. We can do our best to be there for each in the ways that count — while maintaining the distance to uphold this lockdown, of course.

Gratitude and kindness can still spread where the virus does not. Connecting by phone, by video, by any safe distance we can keeps us all from going stir crazy in the meantime.

We’re all in this together. Let’s act like it, shall we?

Please list some actions in the comments that you commit to taking today to strengthen gratitude, extend kindness, or offer connection in the face of this time of adversity. The more specific, the better.

Here, I’ll get us started:

• call one person who I’ve been thinking about on the phone or on videochat daily
  (today that was my friend Marc)
• enjoy 2-minutes of focused appreciation for waking up upon waking up
  (I started doing this daily while in quarantine)
• find one person I can give a gift to every day
  (today that’s my friend Myra, who I gave a year-long subscription to Masterclass to keep her from going nuts while she’s all alone on lockdown)

There, now your turn…