Month: April 2020

The Bubble Dilemma

I slowly made my way through the crowd, trying to reach the front gate.

It was New Year’s Day and I was heading to a hockey game with my friends. But not just any hockey game. An outdoor hockey game.

Events like this only happen a few times a year in hockey. And one had never before come to my neck of the woods.

Because of that, this had been the hottest ticket in town. And I was lucky enough to snag some tickets before they sold out.

But right now, I wasn’t feeling so lucky.

I was stuck in a crush of people, with barely an inch of space in any direction. There were thousands of us trying to make it through the main entrance of the stadium, which had become a massive bottleneck.

As the throng made its slow approach, I was filled with anxiety. Would I be separated from my friends? Would the throng of people send me to the wrong part of the stadium? Would I get trampled, or worse?

About 20 nerve-wracking minutes later, we made it into the stadium. I took several deep breaths before continuing up the ramp to our seats.

Never again, I thought.

Few items are more sensitive to us than personal space.

Whether we’re from wide-open spaces or cramped cities, we crave it. We desire it. We depend on it.

Now, to be clear, we’ve long been able to get by in a pinch. In times of normalcy, we’ve packed into that crowded train car or bravely got in that two-hour line for a ride at Disney World, if the situation demanded it.

(Obviously, this behavior no longer applies at the moment I’m writing this.)

But just because we’ve traditionally been able to manage close quarters doesn’t mean we enjoyed the experience. Quite the contrary.

We are most comfortable when we are within our bubble. When we have an arm’s length of space between us and the nearest person. We demand permission for others to get within this bubble, and we don’t like it when people invade our space without invitation.

This is not conjecture. Our brains are wired to treat the violation of our personal space as a threat.

This is why it’s common to see people take a step back when someone gets in their face. Or to see people reflexively sticking an arm out to keep intruders away.

Our bubbles are sacred. And we must protect them at all costs.

The bubble has been part of our physiology for millennia. But recently, it’s become part of our identity.

With the boom in technology and media options, we extend our bubble to every aspect of our lives. We can choose what to engage with and what to believe. We can create our ideal reality.

This is a mixed blessing.

Choice brings diversity. And through the process of choosing, we can express our individualism.

Yet, choice can also bring divisiveness. Particularly if we fail to respect the viability of alternative options.

So, as we settle into our bubbles, the world fractures — split into billions of tiny fiefdoms. And any time our bubbles collide, fireworks could ensue.

Such confrontations were once sporadic. Even in more primitive times, the etiquette of respecting personal space was widely understood.

But now, the tensions are constant.

The Internet is always on. And the friction between conflicting bubbles percolates — like a >Hatfield-McCoy feud.

Worse, the Internet culture has percolated society at large in recent years. Polarization is as bad as it’s ever been. And there are few refuges from it.

Sure, our particular bubble could be off the grid, in a cabin in Montana. But for most of us, that’s not the reality.

So, we must face this friction. And we must recon with the discomfort it causes us.

The universe has an uncanny knack for calling our bluff.

At the outdoor hockey game, I said that I wouldn’t subject myself to crowds again.

I didn’t truly mean what I said. And yet, it still came to pass.

When the world plunging into a pandemic, crowds have eviscerated. Events have been cancelled. And our personal space bubbles have expanded.

Health experts have now recommended about two arm’s lengths of space between people, for safety reasons. And with many regions under quarantine, there have been fewer opportunities for people to intrude upon that expanded personal space.

In a world full of uncertainty and restlessness, this has been a rare bright spot. A rare sense of calm in a storm of anxiety.

And yet, as we move apart physically, we are also doing so virtually.

We are becoming more set in our ways, and our interpretations of reality. And we are growing ever more intolerant of alternative viewpoints.

Behind computer and smartphone screens, we are getting bolder. More extreme. Less measured.

And with in-person interaction on hiatus, we lack accountability. We don’t have to moderate our behavior to be accepted in public, because there’s no in public to speak of.

This is dangerous. And it flies in the face of precedent.

Indeed, the personal space bubble is only meant to provide protection, not fortification.

Sure, we feel uncomfortable when others get too close. But it does us no good to be too far removed either.

The quiet camaraderie of a shared experience is critical to our sense of security. It’s as important as the tacit understanding that strangers won’t get within an inch of our face.

But by hunkering down in our bubbles — even in the midst of a shared global experience — we take a machete to this ideal. We prop ourselves up at the expense of society.

The time has come to change course.

The time has come for us to be introspective of our behavior. To be empathetic toward the plight of those who differ from us. To be committed to our supporting role in a shared narrative.

The time has come for us to be more trusting. To be less vindictive. To be open to vulnerability.

The time has come for us to be better stewards of society.

It’s easy to hide from this responsibility, with altered reality and dire circumstances in our present. It’s easy to retreat further into our bubbles, as a turtle retreats into its shell.

But we must resist this temptation.

What we do today impacts tomorrow. And a tomorrow dotted with bubbles of isolation is a bleak one. A tomorrow of togetherness is far more promising.

Let’s make it happen.

To The Studs

Moderation.

It’s a term we hear often. But not one we often heed.

We are told to drink in moderation. To enjoy desserts in moderation. To watch TV or check social media channels in moderation.

We’re even told to do healthy things — like exercise or drink water — in moderation.

The rationale is simple. Balance is essential to life.

Too much of just about anything can overtax our systems. It can cause our engines to burn out, without a governor built-in to knock us back down to a safer speed.

Yet, for all its perceived benefits, moderation represents presents a substantial threat. It gives us an edict we must abide by, with little guidance on how to achieve it.

And so, we often find ourselves drawn to the extremes. We find ourselves tantalized by the adage Go big or go home.

Going big can seem more quantifiable than going for moderation. It can seem more aspirational. More exciting.

But how does this play out when we’re going home?

There’s a phrase that those in the home remodeling industry like to use. One that I heard plenty when I was a marketer in that industry years ago.

To the studs.

When remodelers used that term, it meant they were demolishing part of a home and then rebuilding it. The tiling, siding, drywall, appliances — all of it was getting removed. Then, when only the pieces of the house’s wooden framework — the studs — were showing, they’d install the upgraded replacements.

For remodelers, to the studs is the gold standard. It’s the equivalent of a blank canvas for an artist — a perfect forum to deliver a grand vision.

Yet, to the studs has found a new audience in recent years. An audience that’s more fixated on the process than the possibilities.

And this attention has transformed its meaning.

Outside of remodeling circles, to the studs is now associated with cost cutting. With tossing out everything that’s not 100% essential.

In a business context, that could mean budget cuts. In a personal finance context, it could mean slashing expenses. And in a pandemic context, it could mean shutting down everything except the hospital, pharmacy and grocery store.

Yes, to the studs is the polar opposite of our societal obsession with excess. Embracing it means going beyond the zone of moderation, and simply rebooting instead.

But for all the short term benefits of this strategy, there are some costly drawbacks.

For years, I’ve been stripping aspects of my life to the studs.

It all began with a push to get healthier.

First, I gave up on fast food. I haven’t seen the inside of a McDonalds in ages.

Then came a self-imposed ban on sugary drinks. Goodbye Dr Pepper, sweet tea and orange juice.

Then I went sober. Dry January has lasted for years.

More recently, I’ve focused on other areas. I’ve tried to drastically cut back on debt, my volume of streaming entertainment and my social media usage. And I’ve dialed back on some social engagements, even before a global pandemic mandated such moves.

The changes have made me healthier and more efficient. But it hasn’t all been rosy.

Sacrificing these habits long-term has removed many points of interaction from my life. In a way, they’ve caused me to withdraw from society.

It took me quite a while to realize that. And by then, the damage I’d already done had left a mark.

Cultural connections like having a round of drinks with friends at happy hour were gone. So was the comfort of feasting on a Whopper and fries after a rough day.

All around me, these experiences were still happening. But for me, they were foreign.

Once I recognized this, I had two choices. I could return to those experiences to some degree or another, writing off the years I went without them. Or I could maintain the more limited reality I had created for myself, with full awareness of the self-confinement embedded in that decision.

I chose the second option. Others in my position might have decided to go a different route.

But the choice I made is beside the point. My recognition that there was a choice to be made is what matters.

By opening my eyes, I made it out of the wilderness.

As I write this, the world is in a to the studs moment.

The global COVID-19 pandemic  — and its public health and economic ramifications — have forced most of humanity to strip itself of excess.

Social interaction is strained. In-person commerce has eviscerated. And entertainment can only be found through our electronic devices — or in our anxiety-laden dreams.

There has surely been much pain in this moment. The combination of widespread illness and financial hardship is nothing short of devastating. And we must find a way to put that devastation to an end.

But as we work through the big problems, we’re learning just how small all the other ones are.

Indeed, the so-called “essential” trappings of culture have turned out to be more expendable than we’ve thought.

This has led to much analysis about how whether some of that in-person culture will return. There’s a chance that many business trips and conferences will permanently shift to a virtual format. That movie theaters might lose the war against streaming in-home entertainment services, or turn into a specialized relic. That the dine-in restaurant experience will become one solely of luxury, not convenience.

Of course, the prognostications of experts only carry so much weight.

Economic realities and public health concerns will help determine just how everything plays out. But so will the decisions we make moving forward.

Indeed, as our society continues to settle into this no-frills reality, we will all eventually face the same crossroads I once did. Do we stay the course, or revert back to the way we acted before?

Our decision here hinges our whims.

Each of us must look in the mirror and determine the value of re-investing in social interaction. In reinstituting a layer of excess to our bare essentials — even as such a move brings risk back into the picture.

The sum of those decisions will serve as our compass going forward. It will determine how our to the studs project will play out long-term. It will guide our legacy.

So, even if consideration of our next move is agonizing, we must go through with this exercise. It matters.

Yes, it turns out that tearing things down is the easy part. Rebuilding is much harder.

Unintended Consequences

But I didn’t mean it.

It might be the oldest defense in the book. Or if not, it’s certainly the first one we use in our lives.

Yes, these five words are almost an automatic response for kids when they find themselves in trouble.

Got caught hitting your sibling? But I didn’t mean it.

Called a classmate a nasty name in school? But I didn’t mean it.

Egged the neighbor’s house? But I didn’t mean it.

This defense, of course, is an outright lie. We did mean to do those terrible things, but we didn’t mean to get busted.

Our intentions matched our actions in these cases. And even if they hadn’t, we shouldn’t be expecting a free pass for our sociopathic behavior.

Yet, this shoddy defense tactic persists. It existed 50 years ago, it exists now, and it will exist long into the future.

Why? Because it reflects the world at large.

No matter how much we try and keep things in sync, our actions do belie our intentions from time to time.

Life is full of unintended consequences. And that fact has never been more evident.

If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be rationing toilet paper because of a respiratory virus, I would thought they were crazy.

This thought came to me as I took inventory of my supply of toilet paper in my — well, I’m not going to tell you where it’s stashed in my home. I don’t want it stolen.

As the world became gripped by a global pandemic, several predictable things happened. Many people got infected with a lethal virus. Hospital occupancies surged. And, sadly, some succumbed to their illnesses.

Then, several shocking things happened. Sports and concerts got cancelled. Schools and restaurant shut their doors. Office jobs transitioned into remote work arrangements. And entire regions and countries went into lockdown.

Yet, in the midst of all this, some unpredictable things also happened. Perhaps most notably, stores from coast to coast saw their shelves picked clean of toilet paper. And rolling shortages of this sanitary staple persisted for weeks.

There was a valid reason for this strange occurrence, of course. With people spending nearly all of their time at home, toilet paper usage rates were sure to go up.

But unlike many of the other persistent supply shortages — for such items as hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes and paper towels — the toilet paper saga didn’t seem to match the moment at hand. Toilet paper is an essential household item, but it doesn’t directly defend against the virus the way those other items do.

No, the run on toilet paper can be tied to flaws in our behavior.

When we face a new threat, we lose constraint. We stock up on supplies and hunker down until the worst has passed.

These tendencies lead to a phenomenon called Panic Buying. As the threat approaches, unconstrained people head to the stores and buy as many essentials as they can — paper towels, bottled water, bread, eggs, milk and, yes, toilet paper.

Other shoppers see the dwindling supply levels in the aisle and feel compelled to buy these items themselves, before the store runs out of them. That only exacerbates the issue.

This scenario can lead to relatively short-term shortages of these problems during a weather event, such as a blizzard. This can be an immediate issue, but not a persistent one. Sure, the shelves might be picked clean of paper towels and loaves of bread for a bit, but replenishments will arrive once the storm passes.

Yet, in a global pandemic, the storm is not so quick to pass. And so, we end up with store shelves barren of toilet paper — no matter how much employees try and restock it. And we end up with people rationing their usage of toilet paper at home, to stretch existing supplies.

The toilet paper shortage is an unintended consequence of the pandemic.

The toilet paper supply issue is perhaps the most prominent of these unintended consequences. But others are even more dire.

Take, for example, the Stay At Home orders put in place by many regions and countries around the world as the pandemic ballooned. These measures are meant to limit motion and reduce the spread of the virus.

But the orders also restrict many opportunities for people to stay in shape. So, an unintended consequence of a measure to protect people’s short-term health is that they lose some ability to protect their long-term health.

And the broader impact of these directives is even more severe. Staying at home means shuttering nearly all businesses with face-to-face interactions. That has caused tens of millions of people lose to lose their jobs. That means they no longer have a paycheck, leaving them without the means to pay their bills or shop for things they need. That causes the people and companies who rely on those payments and purchases to run into trouble as well.

Suddenly, a single decision to save lives has caused financial disaster for many hardworking people and small businesses. That clearly was an unintended consequence of the decision. Or, at least I’d like to hope it was.

Ultimately, the greatest unintended consequence of the pandemic is that people have to make seemingly impossible choices.

As people run low on hand sanitizer or disinfecting wipes, they must decide whether to cut back on using those items to stretch their supplies. One choice risks health now, the other might risk health later.

Along those lines, as people’s budgets get tighter, some must decide what essentials to sacrifice in order to eat.

There are no good answers to conundrums like these. And while these dire consequences might be unintended, that doesn’t remove their sting.

Life is not about how many times you fall. It’s about how many times you get back up. 

This famous line comes from Jaime Escalante, who famously taught calculus to students in East Los Angeles.

In a way, Escalante was the perfect vessel for this quote. For math is about making sense of the possibilities. About ordering and synthesizing the problems we face.

And yet, no matter how well we prepare, we will not be ready for all of the possibilities we face. There will be some unintended consequences we must contend with along the way.

Escalante knew this as well as anyone. Born and raised in Bolivia, he eventually emigrated to the United States. But not just anywhere in the United States. Escalante ended up working in one of the roughest and most impoverished areas in California.

Escalante persevered, and many of his students ended up passed the Advanced Placement exam. So many, in fact, that the testing review board initially considered the results to be fraudulent.

His success had led to suspicion. Unintended consequences, in the most ironic of ways.

Yet, Escalante was clearly not a quitter. He believed that the true measure of character was perseverance. And he continued to embody that sentiment.

Escalante has long since passed away. But perhaps we can all still learn from him.

We don’t have to let unintended consequences ruin us, no matter how painful they may be. Even in the face of unanticipated challenges, we can still rise to the occasion.

This takes a spirit of adaptation and an open mind. But it can be done. And indeed it must.

For the world is an unpredictable, and scary place. A place where things can fall apart in the least intentioned of ways.

But we still have a chance to determine how our story goes.

Let’s make good use of that opportunity.

On Loneliness

It started innocently enough.

It was Thanksgiving several years back, and I was up in the Northeast. I was catching up with my cousin, as we waited for the grand meal to be served.

My cousin was full of questions.

How’s life in Texas? How’s your job? What do you do for fun?

I answered everything with grace and candor. But when my cousin asked if I had a dog, the conversation veered in a new direction.

I did not, in fact, have a dog. I explained to my cousin that I spent long hours at work and traveled on occasion. I didn’t feel I had the bandwidth to care for a house pet.

“Don’t you get lonely?” she inquired.

“No,” I responded.

My cousin’s eyes got wide. She looked stunned.

To be honest, I was even surprised with my own response.

But it was the truth.

 

I’ve lived alone for nearly a decade.

No pets. No roommates. No girlfriends. Just me.

At first, I found the experience terrifying. When I signed the lease on my first apartment, I was fresh out of college. I had limited skills when it came to household maintenance and cleaning protocols. Plus, I knew none of my neighbors — or anyone in the city I had just moved to.

Over those first few months, I played it safe. I often picked up food from the drive-thru, or cooked boxed meals on the stove. I watched a lot of television. I withdrew from the world.

But gradually, I came to a surprising realization. I liked living alone.

I welcomed the silence that greeted me when I came home after a hectic day at work. It helped me relax and find some needed peace.

I cherished the solitary adventures that came with the territory. I could experiment with a new recipe in the kitchen — knowing that if I messed it up, no one would have to eat my mistakes. I could read a book, watch TV or sit on the balcony if I so desired, free of judgment.

And I embraced the responsibility that came with having my own domain. No one was telling me to run the dishwasher or clean the bathroom. I would need to build those routines on my own. And I ultimately took pride in doing that.

None of this is logical. Living alone is not cost-efficient at all. In those early days, I made so little money that my parents felt compelled to help me with the rent. Years later, a significant portion of my income still goes to household costs and bills.

Plus, we are culturally wired to share our living spaces with others. To mingle. To marry. And ultimately, to raise children under our roof. Living alone long-term can fly in the face of all that.

Yet, as I have grown and gained sophistication in my experiences, one thing has remained constant – my desire to live independently. It’s a core part of my identity.

So yes, I’ve lived alone for a long time. And no, I don’t get lonely.

That much is constant. But lately, everything around me has shifted.

Part of my joy in living alone comes from contrast.

While others might stick to the dominant narrative, I can relish the alternative one.

While others shack up, I can fly solo. While others go out, I can stay in.

I can choose to connect with society as much as I want. And I can withdraw whenever I so desire.

This sense of control has been critical. Living alone has never meant confining myself to my apartment indefinitely. I come and go as I please.

But in the wake of our recent health pandemic, all that has changed.

With a deadly virus spreading rapidly around the world, just about everyone is being compelled to stay home.

Millions are now living my reality. And the sense of contrast I long relied on has evaporated.

This abrupt transition has been difficult. Many outgoing people have been ravaged by pangs of loneliness as they navigate the changes. But even the introverted have struggled at times.

We are all as alone as we ever were. That point is as stark as ever.

There are many ways to define loneliness. But I associate it with a sense of longing.

A longing for connection. A longing for nostalgia. A longing for familiarity.

In the pandemic era, all three of those elements are gone.

We are living in a new reality. A terrifying dystopia where the very fabric of our connection is suddenly an existential threat.

We rely on this connection for more than emotional fulfillment. We depend on it for our livelihoods. And we need it to access the supplies that sustain us.

Because of this, there’s just about no one on the planet who wholeheartedly embraces our new normal. A longing for our former reality — now dearly departed — remains omnipresent.

So, in a way, we’re all lonely now. It’s a fate that none of us wanted to share. A burden that no one wanted to carry.

But carry it, we must. Separately, yet together.

As someone new to this sensation, I don’t quite know how to reconcile it. I find myself torn between a grim acceptance and despair.

To be sure, hope is on the horizon. But the present is painful. And that pain surrounds us.

There is no way to hide from it.

Where do we go from here?

That’s a tough question to answer.

Sure, technology can help to ease the burden. Videoconferencing has skyrocketed recently, both for personal and professional purposes. Voice calls and text messaging are surely up as well.

These options don’t remove the physical distance between us. But they do still bridge some of the emotional void. They raise our spirits and brighten our days.

That’s a start. But it’s not a full-fledged solution.

For the core of loneliness — the yearning connection to the familiar — doesn’t dissipate with an hourlong videocall with loved ones. As the fight against the pandemic intensifies, our world evolves in strange new ways. Those changes are all too present as soon as we disconnect from the videocall.

We must embrace this hardship. We’re in for a long slog, and the world as we knew it might not return.

Yes, at some point, our period of isolation will end. This much is nearly assured.

But the scars of our experience will linger. And our interactions are likely to look different than what we’re all used to.

With that in mind, let us take this time to redefine connection. Let us embrace secondhand connection methods with the same vigor as we do in-person interactions.

Let us endeavor to create art, literature and cuisine that can be enjoyed by those who are geographically separated from us. Let us form innovations that can inspire those we have never met, and may never meet.

Rolling up our sleeves like this can distract us from the situation at hand. It can keep us engaged, even as the rules of interaction ebb and flow. It can save us from despair.

So, let us commit to this choice. Today, tomorrow and for the long haul.

We are all alone now. But we don’t have to be condemned to loneliness.

Life is what you make of it. Let’s make the most of ours.

Tricks and Illusions

I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart racing.

I had just seen a vision of a dystopian world. One so horrifyingly visceral that I was convinced it was real.

As I opened my eyes and hyperventilated, I took stock of my surroundings. All was still in my darkened bedroom. Outside my window, all was quiet and calm.

Everything was normal. I had just had a bad dream.

Our minds are powerful things. They can help us solve some of life’s most profound problems. They can help us visualize new possibilities. And they can help us to get mundane tasks done.

Yet, that power can be compromised. Our minds can lure us into traps.

These traps are particularly effective when the protocols we follow are rewired. When our minds are put on the witness stand for cross-examination.

This is why we freeze when faced with tricks and illusions. This is why these mind games work.

Whether we’re observing a magic trick or falling for a joke, our minds can make us look silly at times.

We welcome this silliness because it keeps us honest. It allows us to find levity, build emotional connections and ward off burnout.

But some tricks and illusions can be more sinister. Confidence schemes can wipe out our life’s savings, leaving us destitute. And nightmares can spike our stress levels, weakening our immune systems.

It’s critical for us to avoid these outcomes. Otherwise, our survival is in grave danger.

So, we compartmentalize.

We prepare ourselves to see magic tricks by attending a magic show. We set up jokes on the first day of April, punctuating them with a warning of April Fools! We keep our guard up when we meet new people. And we do our best to be in a good mental state before we doze off.

These are not perfect solutions. But they provide us with enough control to stay afloat.

Or at least they do until a tidal wave of change hits.

Our lives are driven by emotion.

And one of the most powerful emotions out there is fear.

Fear can stop us in our tracks. It can help us avert a certain action. Or it can goad us into taking an alternative one.

Because fear has such a gravitational pull, it’s used as a tool in many societal settings. We find it in parenting techniques, in storytelling and in governance.

These applications are often for our benefit. Often, but not always.

For it turns out that fear is an illusion. It’s nothing more than a construct in our minds.

Indeed, as a common refrain goes, fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.

With circumspection, we can tackle these fears. We can self-triage — determining whether the outcomes that so terrify us are as likely or detrimental as we imagine them to be.

Often times, the answer to this question is No.

But there are exceptions. Exceptions like global pandemics.

In events like these, the false expectations are real. And that can be hard to fathom.

On one hand, things look normal. The sun is shining. Birds are chirping. Homes, buildings and vehicles stand intact.

But look closer.

Businesses are shuttered. People are confined to their homes. And everyone is being admonished to wash their hands, to avoid touching their faces and to stay six feet apart at all times.

Yes, the signs of normalcy are a smoke screen here. They’re an illusion.

And in these times, reality is the cruelest trick of all.

What happens when the curtain gets lifted? What transpires when the illusion becomes the status quo?

We grieve.

We go through all 5 stages of the Kübler Ross Model: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. And at the end of that process, we adjust.

Initially, we feel aggrieved. We yearn for the lifestyle we had once taken for granted. We curse the new normal.

Finding these attempts futile, we seek to bridge the gap. We try and hold on to some remnants of the past, while adjusting to the demands of the present.

This effort inevitably fails as well. A paradigm shift doesn’t allow for a soft transition. We must dive right in.

Finally, reality sets in. The loss of control yields a sense of hopelessness. We feel pangs of despair, before picking ourselves up and resolving to move forward.

This pattern is well-known for individualized shocks — such as a death in the family, a loss of a job or the breakup of a relationship. But when the entire world is turned on its head, things can get messy.

For there is no set timeline as to when all of us will make it through the gauntlet. There’s no synchronized date when we cross the threshold from one stage of grief to another.

Much like runners in a marathon, we cross the mile markers at our own pace. All as the event timer keeps ticking away.

Meanwhile, leaders wait impatiently, mired in a brutal Catch-22. They need to act quickly to properly adapt societies to the shifted landscape. But they also need consensus — which can be hard to find as individuals navigate the new normal on their own timelines.

Conundrums like these illustrate why the fascination with disruptive change in the business world is misguided. Even in the best of times, we struggle to turn on a dime.

But in crises like these — moments when our darkest illusions come to life — this tendency becomes a real liability.

So, what can we do to ease the burden?

How can we move past the paralysis of being tricked, bamboozled and floored by a world that suddenly looks much different than it once did?

We can start by letting go. By not pining for the creature comforts of the recent past, or wondering when they’ll be restored wholesale.

That ship has sailed.

We must instead focus on vigilance. On finding the right resources to follow during this period of disorientation. And on taking the appropriate actions.

This is exceedingly difficult when our world has just been rocked. For we are low on confidence, and particularly vulnerable to any tricks and illusions that persist in our new reality.

(For instance, the risk of cyberattacks is known to increase during pandemics.)

But often, what is difficult is necessary. Necessary to get us out of the quicksand of confusion. Necessary to keep us moving forward.

So, let’s recognize the circumstances. Let’s accept that illusion has become reality.

And let’s get on with finding the right light to guide the path ahead.

Our future depends on it.