Social Distancing is not Social Disconnection

For the past ten years, I have made it my life’s mission to bring human connection to the forefront of society. To point out how digitally connected we have become and how emotionally disconnected we have become from each other on the back of this. 

You see, we can now call someone on the other side of the world from the devices in our pockets. We can wire money around the world in a click of a button or a tap on a screen smaller than a $50 note. Yet, we can’t have face to face conversations. We struggle to sit still and learn and educate ourselves about each other. I would go as far as to say a lot of us don’t even know our best friends as well as we think we do.

Now we have another element tearing us apart, quite literally putting walls between us as a society. It’s bringing the worst traits out in some of our community (the toilet paper smugglers know who they are). Yet it is equally showing the beauty and the potential we have within us to care and to support one and other.

We are being told to self-isolate if we are unwell or infected, this I do not disagree with at all. I plead of our community to do the right thing in flattening the curve. To practice good hygiene and to isolate for the recommended period of time if unwell (14 days as at 17/3/20). 

However, we must not confuse self-isolation or social distancing for self-disconnection. Now more than ever as a community we need human connection. We need a genuine, honest and incredibly vulnerable connection to those around us. We are all in this together, not one person is immune to this virus. Therefore, before we pull out our pitchforks and allow only the strongest to survive. Maybe, just maybe we can lean into empathy a little more. Lean into leadership come together as a nation built on community; built on the back of those who have gone before us.

You see leadership (as defined by oxford dictionary) is 'the action of leading a group of people or an organization'. Nowhere here does it mention a title, a position or an age. You see a leader to me is someone who looks after the people around them. Someone who will see another person struggling and instead of trampling over them, will slow down and help bear their load. 

A leader is someone who right now is not shying away from how real and scary this situation is. Someone who is not playing down the exponential threat to both our society and our economy. A leader to me is someone who is vulnerable and who is honest. Someone who admits this is hard and is willing to battle alongside you to get through this. Simply, a leader is someone who takes action.

You know the beautiful thing about defining a leader not by who they are but by what they do is? 

It means anyone can be a leader.