What a time we’re living in right now, huh? The COVID-19 virus is running rampant across the globe. It’s a global (read that word again … “global”) pandemic. Everyone in every country everywhere is being affected.
We are certainly living in unprecedented times.
I’m sure you are all aware of the fallout that is happening because of this disease. I don’t need to spend a lot of time talking about how many people are sick right now around the world. Neither do I need to labor over the people who are losing their jobs, the potential number of people who could lose their homes long term, or the global recession we’re starting to experience right now. You all are keeping up with the news (some of you too much) and you know what’s going on … probably better than I do.
Suffice it to say that this pandemic is changing our world. Nothing will ever be the same. The way we work (and the things we do for work) will change. The way we care for people will change. Everything we know about our lives will change.
I wish this change came under better circumstances. I wish that we didn’t wait for a disease to come and hurt so many people before we decided that the way we did things needed to change. I wish we didn’t have such short-term thinking.
That’s me by the way. I am probably the worst of the short-term thinkers. I am very much a “right now” kind of person. I don’t think with a very long-term mindset. That has to change.
That’s going to change.
Some Encouragement
But here’s the thing … change, in general, is not a bad thing. Hitting the reset button and doing things better or different is awesome. Finding new ways to do what you do, being creative and coming up with new things, that’s what’s gotten the human race to where we are today. That’s why we’re still surviving.
New medical procedures save countless lives every day. New tech means that we can work in new ways. Smart, creative people come up with new ideas all the time.
Change is all around us all the time. We just need to open up our eyes and see it. We need to be willing to take out our notebooks and dream. We need to turn off Netflix for a minute and spend some time thinking about who we want to be and what we’re meant to do. Then come up with some ways to make it happen.
This isn’t a time to sit back and do nothing. On the other side of this virus - and yes, there will eventually be an “other side” to this virus - there will be a whole new thing waiting for us. A whole new world.
This is the time when it’s up to us to adapt and change. If you’ve got some free time on your hands now, what productive things can you be doing with that time? If you work in an industry that’s still moving along right now, what are some ways that your industry could change and move forward better than it is today? How can life be different moving forward?
The world is changing. This is our chance to change right along with it. This is our chance to not get left behind.
The world might be changing us but this is our chance to change the world.
We’ve all got ideas inside of us. They might be buried deep, but they’re in there. We just have to be willing to do a little excavating to find them. What better time than right now?
Get out your shovels, my friends. Let’s start digging.