Confidence without Clarity?

“Stay well...”

“Stay safe...”

“During these unprecedented times...”

“We’re all in this together...”

“The ‘New Normal’...”

These seem to be the watch phrases of this global COVID-19 pandemic. For many of us, it’s easy to feel caught in a kind of purgatory imposed by authorities seemingly beyond our reach, but it’s also a limbo driven by fear of the unknown. 

The great irony throughout our discussions is that these times are not that unprecedented, nor is this really, a “new” normal. Because we’ve seen and responded to deadly pandemics before—the Influenza of 1918-1920 was perhaps most comparable to the one we are experiencing today. And we’ve had many others since. The virus is different, but the effects elicit many of the same images. People in face masks, empty avenues, closed shops along our Main Streets. The differences are also just as stark—the speed of communications, television news, the ubiquity of social media, as well as the rapid advances in medical research, prime among them. 

How to proceed when conditions are uncertain...and perilous?

Imagine, for a moment, this hypothetical scenario: you are in a massive, dark room and you are told there is just one exit—and many deep holes capable of swallowing you dot the ground along your way. It’s pitch black—you can see nothing...

Terrifying to conceive? Yes...but there is also a hopeful note:

For every step you take in the right direction, when you stop, a light beams skyward, briefly illuminating the area around you and each of the other holes to help guide you along the rest of the way. Those lights, though? They dim very quickly, and the room again becomes very dark.

What is your strategy? Your methodology? Do you charge forward in the direction you believe the exit is located—and risk falling into a deep hole? Or do you carefully plan each step, negotiating the obstacles that stand in your way, gaining more light as you move toward the exit?

Now, add your family members, your friends, and your neighbors into the room with you. Because, after all, you’re all in this together.

An imperfect analogy, to be sure—but the point is, confidence without clarity will defeat us. Conversely, clarity when gained deliberately, cooperatively, and systematically delivers confidence...and real results.

Right now, five to six months into this pandemic, we still don’t have much clarity about the future. Unless you’re 100 years old, of course, you haven’t experienced a pandemic on this scale. And if you are a centenarian, you can’t remember any of it because of your youth at the time. 

And yet, the lessons of that pandemic are there to shed light on the path in front of us. Briefly, fleetingly...perhaps partially. But they are there nonetheless.

None of us can precisely predict the outcome of the COVID-19 Pandemic. But the precautions we have in place, if allowed to work, will surely deliver both confidence and positive results for the long term.

Rushing toward the exit, however, will cause us to falter, and ultimately could defeat us.

Stay well.