Five Steps to Weathering the Pandemic

Many among us face this pandemic as not just an inconvenience, a very unwelcome change to a life we're accustomed to living on autopilot, but weathering the storm requires turning back the pages to other emergencies we’ve battled through, and to take hope from those lessons. This is a blog I’ve written and rewritten as hourly news unfolds yet another level of concern, another change, another nail in the coffin of our business hopes and dreams. But put aside your business for just one minute.

When calamity strikes, it’s no longer about you, me, ourpaychecks, our vacations, the size of our 401k or the next new car. It’s aboutweathering the storm. How many of you remember sitting in gas lines in the70’as, patiently waiting for a fill during the oil embargo? We suffered arecession. Those graduating from college waited a year or more for their firstjobs. I remember feeling like things were getting back to normal about threeyears later. Three years. What mattered most were manners, patience andthe people we loved.

How many of you remember climbing under school desks for bomb drills? Do you remember the fear we breathed during the Bay of Pigs standoff, with images of Nakita Kruschev banging his shoe at the UN threatening to annihilate our way of life?  When our president was assassinated (and everyone supported the president, whether he had earned their vote or not), my junior high years were punctuated with the grim reality that life is indeed precious. What mattered most were manners, patience and the people we loved.

In looking back over a life dotted with calamities andshortages and wars, five things come to light as steps in getting through apandemic.

1.  People matter. Draw your loved ones close. Reach out to the elderly and infirm. Be the people who embody our way of life.
2. Learn to appreciate basic comforts. There may be some financial repercussions in our future, but a cup of tea on a cool morning, sunshine on the back porch and the sweet smell of flowers exist outside of your checkbook.
3. Find a way to serve others. Check in on neighbors. You won’t pass anything through the door when you stand on the porch and bring some perishables they haven’t been able to get out to purchase. Make a craft pattern neighbor’s children can enjoy.
4. Dig deep to your roots of faith. It’s easy to profess your faith when you feel self-sufficient, but right now you aren’t. You need the moorings of your childhood faith. This would be a good time to pray for sunshine and warmer temperatures to slow down the curve.
5. Be calm in your soul. That well of peace is your point of reference for each new calamitous report. Yes, we may see a high death toll among us. Yes, we will most probably see our hospitals overtaxed and unable to take care of all the sick. We haven’t yet peaked in the exponential rise of cases which will be reported.

So yes. I think a measured response is a simple response. Bemannerly. Be patient. Take care of your family. Embrace simple measures, stepsif you will, to weather the pandemic. One day you’ll look back and begin tobuild your business again, and life will be all the sweeter.