Getting through Covid-19 together

Living in unprecedented times. How many of us thought that would be us, or even contemplated what that sentence would have meant 4 months ago?

It is not just the unprecedented times, but the uncertainty intrinsically linked with them that many of us are struggling to come to terms with. Almost overnight our view of the world, priorities and liberty has changed. This virus will run its course, but will we ever think quite the same again about the world we live in?

The capitalist society most of us have embraced and thrived in for centuries is facing its biggest threat to date. For decades our world has been shrinking as the internet, social media and cheap travel made connecting with people exponentially simpler than it has ever been. We were lulled into a false sense of security that the world really was a small place and have just been given the rudest awakening possible.

People had become so self-absorbed with their own personal goals that we'd forgotten as a society just how much reliance our own little universes have on the rest of society being able to function normally. The second the wheels started to fall off, the cause and effect was deeper and more complex than anyone would have imagined.

We are a long from being out of this current state of affairs and if the scaremongering is to be believed the potential for it to get much worse is terrifying, The health threat to our world is high for certain, but the economic risk to our way of life is now outweighing that. The cure cannot be worse that cause, so to recover from Covid-19 we must protect our economic infrastructure, not just our health one.

If we dramatically change our financial behavior and spending, then the domino effect will accelerate events we cannot even begin to fathom. Already we cannot travel and our travel and tourism industry are in crisis. Currently there is little that can be done about this other than trying to help individuals from that sector re-train and/or transition into something else in the meantime, but many of our services and areas can still be kept going through just considering the impact of our every action.

There is a very simple way to try and ensure we do come out of this to something resembling the world we loved and potentially took for granted before this pandemic. Kindness and consideration. Two simple words, which if applied on a global scale will have more impact than the combined efforts of the financial institutions globally. Everything we do has an effect.

We can keep our SMEs going by continuing to use their services. Order takeaways from restaurants and cafes instead of bulk buying 4 weeks of food. Order online from retail stores that have closed their doors or that you can't get to. Support your local economy in any and every way you can. In turn our SMEs rely on services from our large corporates, who need to employ people to deliver those services. All of these services require goods and infrastructure, which need to be grown, manufactured or assembled. It's all one thing.

Call people you wouldn't normally call and make sure they're OK. Help people you wouldn't normally help, think about what we can safely do that doesn't impact the spread of this virus but still helps the wheels of our economy continue to turn.

Our only chance to survive as a society is to genuinely act as a society. To consider the whole, to help every single part and together we will endure. If we try to go this alone then our health may be fine, but at what cost, and to what end?

There are lessons we can learn from this that can make the world that awaits us better than the one we had. This can be an opportunity, an opportunity to re-evaluate what really is important and live for that; strive for that.

I am so grateful for everything I have in my life and I am not so naive that I don't realise how fortunate I am to have a great job that allows me to spend quality time with my family and friends. Not everyone is lucky, but if all of the lucky people help those less fortunate then we will leave a legacy that future generations will be thankful for, rather than one for them to resent, which I think may have been the path we were on.

My sincere love and wishes go out to everyone affected by Covid-19, from a physical or financial perspective. I hope through my actions, no matter how small on a global scale, that I'm able to help a little. If others do the same, until there is a universal cascade of good will and help, we will cause a tidal wave of change that leads us not only to a well needed recovery, but something on the other side that in hindsight will have made this all worthwhile.

I'll leave you with one verse from the famous Scottish Australian poet Adam Lindsey Gordon. It is the poem I had inscribed on my father's headstone, and it seems incredibly relevant in these times.

“Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone.

Kindness in another's trouble,

Courage in your own.”