The Big Rock
You know that feeling when something has been on your mind for a while, and you keep stressing over it (among stressing over other things), and then something bigger, uglier, sadder and large-scale happens, and then you start thinking about that and for the time-being shelf your prior worries, thinking you’l get back to them once you are done fighting this big rock? Ever felt that? Are you feeling that in the present scenario?
It’s not funny anymore. Both nature and human nature. How they take you for a ride when you least expect it, and there is no telling when they are done dancing and shaking up your world. Well, speaking of big rocks and nature and shaking up the world, here’s something that comes to my mind. No, not Coronavirus. But yeah, that’s pretty big and that leads to this big rock. The end of the world?
There are (more in number than one can remember) books, predictions, movies, and conversations that have happened around the “End of the World”. I wonder, is there a Thanos at work that the human race isn’t privy to? Do we have some classified, super-secret service, Avengers replica who are fighting to save the planet and the population? Or what’s left of it at least?
Our attention currently is divided. Some of us are worried about food supplies, some worried about quarantines, some trying to stay alive by eliminating any possible external human contact at all, some waiting for official mails instructing them to work from home, a lot of people thinking about how to keep the business running, a lot of leaders wondering whether to cut increments or cut salaries or shut down shop, and then of course, there are some who do not want to run out of toilet rolls. So what’s on my mind is this – What do we prepare for? Shall we make work a priority or shall we run to stores and stock up supplies or shall we hope that magically the situation will improve and we’l get through this, or do we take a deep breath, pause, and accept that our time has come?
Being human, we have a certain inclination towards certainty. While we have become quite capable of navigating our lives, jobs, relationships, through ambiguity, the vagueness of what lies ahead is a level we are certainly not prepared for. Let’s accept that at least? A majority of us are still in denial of the magnitude of the present scenario, or atleast were until Tom Hanks caught the virus. Well, then of course, then you knew someone who has it and it became real. Isn’t it?
I spend my days wrapping my mind around this – what was the purpose of me getting educated, getting a job, learning to take care of myself and those I love, finding my passion, making the big move, making through everything that was supposed to hold me down, only to come to this day, where none of it, not one bit of it matters, or maybe it does because our struggles, mine and yours made us capable enough to deal with the curveballs life throws at us. All these years of keeping personal and professional lives separate, then work-life balance, then work-life integration and now work from home, I mean your house has become a coworking space in itself! Well, however the future shapes up, whether it is half the global population getting wiped away, or a vaccine that comes into play just in time to not let the former become a reality, or something that’s beyond what the human mind can possibly imagine at this point in time, one thing is clear – those disaster management classes back in school, should have taken them seriously!
They say it’s never too late. So while you didn’t focus too much on the disaster management classes, let’s improvize now, take precautions, look out for one another, think global not local. Let’s put on our thinking hats and find a way to pull through this together, personal and professional. Let’s work towards sustaining life, work, earnings, families, community, and in the long run, sustain hope!
Stay safe!
#Covid19 #sustainability #experience