Glass Half Full of a Metal Ankle

Recently, I fell. I was walking with some co-workers to have dinner in a work trip and stepped on a misshaped rock on the floor and fell on my left ankle. It broke. It broke so instantly that I could hear the bone breaking. We needed to call an ambulance and I needed to undergo emergency surgery. Four months later, I am on the verge of another surgery, simpler and still without full mobility, in addition to a few metal screws in my ankle that will just have to stay there.

When that happened, I had two holiday trips paid, one was carnival with friends, and we were going to hike to waterfalls and take boat rides. The other one was within 3 weeks. It was going to be one of those once in a lifetime trips. I was going to Australia for a Conference that I loved and was helping to organize it for more than a year and half and, after that, I would enjoy my sweet vacations. I was dreaming about “playing” with the kangaroos and koalas, I was going to dive in the great barrier reef, sleep under the stars in a boat in the middle of the ocean. I could not be more excited, and I had it all booked in advance.

Not anymore. Due to that small fall while walking, I needed surgery, surgery that would require certain time of recovery with my new metal ankle up. The glass was seeming a little empty to me.

Little after my travel date to Australia, the World Health Organization declared the pandemic. The numbers of COVID-19 grew exponentially and Brazil was starting to see a significant increase in the curve. Soon after, what would be my return flight to Brazil got cancelled along with all others. More than 7,000 Brazilians were stuck in other countries’ airports without commercial flights back and the Brazilian government had to create alternative ways to bring those people in.

And I was with my new metal ankle up from the comfort of my apartment. When home office became almost mandatory for people with my type of work, I was already doing that for a month.

I know my situation is a little specific because it happened during this time, but in life we can look at things focusing on everything that we lost, everything that went wrong or try to focus on what we have and what we can learn.

We are all living in a difficult time and most of us have never experienced anything similar. We are facing new conditions that we were not ready to. We are far from our loved ones and keeping hearing that we will live a “new normal” that nobody knows what is yet. But at the same time, we gained an opportunity to reevaluate. Reevaluate what is essential, what is important, and how do we expend our time. Reevaluate the Countries’ priorities, political opinions. Reevaluate work arrangements as a society, knowing that people that were out of the market because of disabilities or impossibilities to work in fixed time and office, could have been working long ago from their homes.

The World Economic Forum released recently the “COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A preliminary Mapping and Its implication”. Although it mentions all the already seen bad implications on the economy and equality, it also states:

“This crisis offers a unique opportunity to shape a better world. As economies restart, there is a unique opportunity to embed greater societal equality and sustainability into the recovery, accelerating rather than delaying progress towards progress towards the 2030 sustainable development goals and unleashing a new era of prosperity”.

I have decided to see that my broken ankle prevented me from a potential exposure to a contagious virus, realizing that I was not stuck in an airport trying to get home. I am taking my recovery time and the time at home to reevaluate my plans and goals and trying to separate some time to work on projects or learn things that I have long wanted to but was always postponing due to lack of time. I have decided to see the glass half full.

As we often hear, in life, we can’t always control what happens to us. But we can always control how we react to it.

P.S.: I understand that I am speaking from a place of privilege and while I have the opportunity to rethink, millions have only time to worry if their families will have something to eat on the next day. So, for the ones like me, that are privileged enough to work from home and rethink society, lets also re-evaluate ways to help and improve the lives of these people. As the WEF stated, lets shape a better world.