That’s a typical question I get (expletives deleted) when I use common sense and wear a mask in public to keep myself and others safe from the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.
Let me break it down a little deeper.
Think of a mask as a face condom. With effective condom usage, you avoid STDs and have a 98% chance of preventing pregnancy. With a mask, you have a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and harming other people when you cough, sneeze, talk, or raise your voice. It’s not 100% effective in the spread of the virus, but it blocks 95% of particles, 0.3 microns or larger, which spread COVID-19, livescience.com says.
So why wouldn’t you wear a mask? The reasons I hear are usually selfish.
“I didn’t feel like it.”
“It makes me look weak.”
“I don’t think the virus is real.”
“The mask makes me uncomfortable; I can’t breathe in it.”
Being uncomfortable is a legitimate excuse, but it’s a better trade-off than being forced to quarantine for two weeks and/or having symptoms that seriously suck like extreme coughing, fever or chills, sore throat, muscle or body aches, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. And no, it’s not likely, but yes, you could die.
All the other responses are all about you. Don’t be so concerned with how “lame” your friends say you look that you’d rather harm or potentially kill other people.
What if families spending more time together was just like a brief family reunion, and when it’s over we all hug and go on with our lives?
What if all the time we thought we’d like to have for our own companionship just gave way to an abyss of introspective loneliness?
What if spending more time together with our partner reminded us why we’d drifted toward spending less time together?
What if working from home made us yearn for the socialization provided even by an anti-social workspace?
What if the intention to cook and consume more nutritional food just gave way to the addiction of stress binging?
What if all our drawers and closets got more full and not cleaned and organized because of all our in-seclusion home shopping?
What if the initial elation and novelty of an endless stream of streaming videos just left us overwhelmed and overconnected and wanting to mute and disconnect them all?
What if checking in on each other gave way to checking out on each other as our unity gave way to enmity and disagreement and divisiveness? What if our profanity outscreamed our humanity?
(Courtesy: Unsplash)
What if more time for prayer and meditation made us think too much about our flaws, which made us acknowledge that we really don’t want to try to change them?
What if instead of rising to the occasion and maintaining our buoyancy, we all just reverted to type after a hopeful start? And what if we’ve just remained the virtual versions of who we always were?
What if at if all this has merely just changed the nature of the question from “So what if?” to merely “So what?”
Nestled within the hunkered down at home workforce is a cadre of you who aren’t at all dismayed. In fact, you’ve been silently and not so silently hoping and even advocating for your moment to make this move.
You mourn the pandemic-induced cause of this sudden surge to working remotely, but you’re enamored by the effect. You feel at home – literally – working at home.
Not everyone likes it like you do. You respectfully acknowledge the angst of those longing not to languish for long with kids at home, partners at home, pets at home, no workspace at home, feeling isolated at home, and chaos at home as the consequences of working at home.
The company guidelines that allow you to work virtually only as a policy exception are still in the pile of paperwork pending in your abruptly abandoned office. Could this be the opportunity to circumvent those rules on a regular basis?
Your biggest challenge to this coup may be those coworkers who are consciously consulting the calendar wondering when they can gleefully re-occupy your locked-up buildings. But the pervasive uncertainty of when that will be may allow time to make the current environment an acceptable option for those who do want to try to demonstrate its viability.
The shock has begun to subside now from the sudden surreal transition to a forced work-from-anywhere situation. Now the unexpected is being replaced by the unknown. We’re gradually accepting the sobering sense that our work practices will never quite be the same. From what we’ve experienced so far, consider these preliminary “do and don’t” thoughts on how to influence from your home office vantage point whether this will become a permanent view:
DO – Maintain the virtues of virtual meetings
It’s actually somewhat comforting to know that as much as things have changed, there are some things that can stay the same; most notably, the foundation of effective meetings:
A virtual meeting is still a meeting.
A meeting should still have a purpose. If there’s no purpose for the meeting you don’t need to schedule it.
The meeting purpose should be reflected in an agenda.
The meeting should begin at a certain time.
(Let’s say you’re someone who used to like to leave your office, stop and refill your coffee, go to the restroom, chat with two people you ran into along the way, and run back to your office to get something you forgot. That means you should have been on your way to the meeting at least 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. If the start time was 10:00 a.m., you wouldn’t expect the meeting to start at 10:10 to wait for people who are still arriving.
The same is true with a virtual meeting. If you anticipate you’ll encounter issues with connectivity “on the way the meeting,” log on ahead of time. If you’re the meeting organizer you shouldn’t have to wait to start a 10 o’clock meeting at 10:10 virtually, just as you wouldn’t do so in person.
The meeting should end at a certain time, too – as soon as practical, please. We’ve moved beyond our fascination with the virtual dynamics, so we no longer need to be distracted by
staring at each other and nervously adjusting the camera so we look our best when others stare back at us.
“Touch base” meetings can be fine, too, if there’s a reason for touching base. Otherwise, remember, extroverts, that one reason some of your coworkers feel more productive virtually is that it limits the lengthy “how ya doin’” touch bases and drop-ins encountered when you’re all in the office.
DON’T – get lax in your leadership
If during your normal routine you never discerned the difference between supervision, management, and leadership, now would be a great time to make this distinction.
It will take supervisors and managers to handle the tasks needed to pull organizations through this make-or-break business life cycle season.
But it will take leaders to instill the vision and move forward with the gentle tenacity needed to guide with certainty to a new uncertain place.
Those of us you have leadership titles must not squander this responsibility with the types of limitations that may seem to be part of your new virtual paradigm. To the contrary, technology offers a no-barriers, no-excuses way to reach out even to those who aren’t part of your inner circle or those you won’t just happen to run into in the hallway anymore. Those of you who are true leaders will find ways to lead regardless of the circumstances.
DON’T make us be(a)ware of your pet (and other household distractions)
Your phone call may be more productive if you’re lounging on your deck instead of lounging at your desk, but not if we can hear static from the wind howling or the whirring of neighborhood landscapers.
And someone has to say it, so here goes – not everyone is a pet person.
Others may have grown to respect the love you have for your pet. They likely know your pet provides you with loyalty, companionship, protection, exercise, and lessons for your life. They know you must have lovingly labored over what you named your Kibbles, your Caveman, your Muffin, your Bongo.
If they wonder (which they may do), if the quality of your pet interaction surpasses your human interaction (which it might), they do so privately so they don’t offend you (which it probably would).
But now you’re virtually bringing your pet into their homes.
So they’ve patiently enduring having the meeting start with the meeting organizer taking the time to quiet Patriot the Pup. They’ve been wholeheartedly good-humored when the presence of one pooch inspires others to go retrieve their retrievers as well. They’ve been tolerant of when the screen focuses on Smiley smiling, or into the lens of Lovey licking your lips, or when they have to pause to acknowledge that PooPoo’s, well, pooping. This is now not a one-time whoops vs. a pattern they respectfully ask you to stop now that the novelty has worn off.
And in exchange they should promise they won’t let their kids sing their ABCs during your presentation or interrupt when they’re having their own home schooling technology issues. Your kids are dreadfully cute – they really are – and we know you’d like to send them back to school as soon as it’s safe to. We would too. But in the meantime, we know it strains their tolerance to play in their rooms along with Rodney the Retriever or Cocoa the cat until the meeting ends. So what a great incentive for you to shorten the agenda so they (and you and the other meeting attendees) won’t get agitated. An efficient, productive meeting is a win-win for all.
DO stay focused – productivity is persuasive!
And yes, finally, there’s power in productivity! The bottom line is the bottom line. Finish your projects Start new ones. Participate in meetings. Meet your goals. Stay in touch with your colleagues. Manage your time. Be positive. Be innovative and thoughtful.
If your job or your personal circumstances don’t lend themselves to making this virtual shift a permanent part of your lifestyle, then we join you in hoping the ultimate resolution for you will be satisfactory and as swift as is safe. But for those of us who believe in what before seemed unbelievable, now’s the time to demonstrate with results that will result in the long-lasting home office we’ve long envisioned.
In other words, don’t act like you’re working from home. Instead, show that you’re at home, working.
I was thinking of reaching out to someone who, I guess I should be honest, I may have treated badly in the past. It wasn’t intentional. I just wasn’t very nice. Maybe it was even partly her fault.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by her cool and indifferent reaction to me now. I guess you could just say I’m older and wiser. It all bothers me for reasons I can’t even explain. I’ve pretty much moved on with my life and I assume she has too. I rationalized and made excuses for my behavior back then, but now, I guess I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to make it better?
Answer:
Think about “it”:
Do you remember when you were a kid and you couldn’t return to school after you were sick without a doctor’s note saying you were better?
Don’t go back into a relationship without doing the work you need to do to be sure you’re healthier now.
The very nature of human interaction is that what we say and do has some impact on the person we’re saying and doing it to.
It’s enticing and uplifting to reflect on what our collective existence could bring forth if every time we touched each other in some way, it would be in a way that would leave them whole, not make them hurt.
But now I feel my spirit sinking too, as I acknowledge the reality that our human dealings with other human beings often result in someone being hurt.
What was “it” you did?
How we treat each other is simply a series of human decisions we make.
And we’re constantly making decisions: decisions on how we do business, how we do love, how we do parenting, decisions on how we handle friendships and intimate relationships, decisions on what we say about someone and who we say it to and in what manner we say it, decisions on the way we interact with families, neighbors, friends, children, the elderly, youth, coworkers, subordinates (are they really?), and random strangers.
Sometimes we make hurtful decisions without even thinking about the implications. We carelessly or thoughtlessly or frivolously interact with someone in some way.
Sometimes it’s unintentional, like when we didn’t have the emotional maturity (yea, that means “immaturity”) to realize the hurtful void we left when we had the chance to interact positively with someone but made a decision not to do so.
Sometimes it’s unavoidable and inevitable. We didn’t know or didn’t care how to handle a decision in a healing, not a hurtful, way. Or maybe you did your best, but it hurt somebody anyway.
And sometimes it’s simply selfish. We make a decision that only caters to our own needs as though that’s all that matters.
What did “it” do?
Your hurtful decisions could inflict on someone else just a small, momentary sting.
Or it could rise to the ravaging effects of psychological abuse that trigger health-threatening chemical reactions in another human’s, body, mind, and spirit. You cheated on her. You ghosted her. She betrayed your trust. You lied. You took advantage of her. She led you on and then dumped you. You neglected her. She wasn’t there when you needed her. You took something away from her.
And here’s what happens to YOU – not just the other person – when your decisions hurt someone else.
What happens to YOU when you hurt someone? You start a windstorm you can’t escape.
Even if you dismiss the impact of your decisions by suggesting the other person “get over it” or “move on,” consider the force it will take that person to pick up what you’ve torn down. Do you think you can keep that type of power from sucking YOU into the vortex of hurt as well?
So maybe that’s the “it” you’re feeling – the backlash of your own actions?
What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is that you reduce yourself to a lower level of humanity that allows you to be capable of that action. No surprise then, if you feel inhumane. Is that the “it” you’re feeling?
What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is maybe you’re continuing to delay your own healing. Are you inflicting your own unresolved hurts on someone else in an unconsciously lame attempt to keep yourself from hurting?
What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is that you’ve given yourself permission to be superior to what you perceive as that person’s inferior status to you.
What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is that you trigger the natural flow of the self-regulating process of whatever your belief system may be. An eye-for-an-eye. Karma. Vengeance. What goes around comes around. For every action there’s an equal reaction. You reap what you sow. Revenge.
All of these have their roots in the divine correcting nature of what my friend’s wisely-uneducated uncle sized up in a simple declaration: “you can’t do wrong and get by.”
That decision you thought you had to make, that step you thought you had to take, that relationship you felt you had to end, that discipline you concluded you had to dole out. What you did was hurtful, whether you knew it or not, whether you intended it or not, whether you were justified or not.
And perhaps what really got your attention now is that the person you hurt seems, at least seems, to be OK, and her decision to disregard your disrespect could perhaps be hurting YOU – is that “it?”
What is “it” you should do now?
I’m impressed you’ve started recognizing the frailty of rationalizing “it” as a way to justify “it.”
I know I’m not being kind now. But I suspect you know there’s an issue or you wouldn’t have asked the question. Maybe the best way you’ll understand the pain of hurting someone is to feel that hurt yourself.
And once your OWN pain has you bothered to the point that “it” has gotten your attention?
The “it” you can make better is to be more mindful, more intentional, more thoughtful, less self-centered, less uncaring, less frivolous in handling those hurtful decisions you made, and those you wish you hadn’t.
How can you do that? I suspect you’ll find a way, to relieve the hurt you’ve inflicted that’s hurt you now, too.
Own “it.” Do the work to fix “it.”
That healing starts within yourself first. Don’t go back into a relationship without a doctor’s note.
This year I’m focusing more on revelations than resolutions, and it’s working!
Hindsight’s typically sharper than foresight. So why not take advantage of our human tendency to look backwards, and learn from whatever that reveals about what worked and didn’t work for us (revelations)?
The alternative is to presume we have the supernatural skills to look forward to determine not only what we want (resolutions), but also how to plan for all the unknowns that will inevitably occur on our path from here to there (we can’t, and that’s why we often give up In discouragement when we try to fulfill those pesky, self-promising, prognosticating resolutions).
What’s already happened in the past though, is firmly there, for us to touch and caress and laugh at and lament and gasp and grasp and grow and give thanks for, and reflect on the revelations our past actions, inactions, and situations can bring if our new year celebrations turn to what we can learn when we revel in our revelations.
I respectfully disagree with cautions that you shouldn’t keep looking in the rear view mirror. Then why is it there? To see what’s gaining on you. To beware of what’s following you so it won’t overtake you. To get a gauge of your own progress. To stay abreast of what’s all around you.
You wouldn’t have a car without a way to look back for productive reasons, nor should you manage your life that way.
So at least glance backwards not for the purpose of staying there, but as a catalyst to trigger reflections and revelations that help you strengthen your resolve as you move forward.
I hit a pothole and I need to fix that damage so I can stay safe on my journey.
I ignored the detours and ended up somewhere lost where I didn’t want to be and wasn’t supposed to go.
I heeded the caution signs and it turns out I avoided an accident.
I crashed, but my life wasn’t totaled, so I walked away with only scars that now need to heal.
I quickly paused on yellow, but I should have waited more patiently for the red light so I could have stopped to check my route.
I arrived safely at the destination and now it’s time to keep moving on.
I cut in front of somebody I should have yielded to.
I picked up someone I should have left at the side of the road.
I left behind someone I thought was with me for the journey but was only good for a few miles.
I took a risk and sped ahead and now I need to be sure I know where this momentum is leading me.
I forgot to pull over for a while and just enjoy the scenery.
And then naturally, from these revelations, flowed my resolutions at the same time. I can’t predict what will happen but I know what already did.
I can’t change what happened, but I can use it as a firm foundation on which I can now stand to look out over was, what wasn’t, what still needs to be, what I won’t allow to be again, and what I want to be even more and in a better way.
This foundation of revelation becomes the rock for my resolutions.
I’m putting my foot on that rock of revelations. And resolving to keep it there.
OK, I’ve stuck to my New Year’s resolutions for nearly three weeks now. But January is almost over and I’m afraid I’m going to fall off the cliff! I really want to stay on track this year. I don’t want to lose ground and I don’t want to get discouraged.
RESPONSE:
So you’re afraid you’re about to spend another year reading your book that someone else wrote? The best way to keep from falling off the cliff is to slowly back away from the ledge.
Assuming your goals are realistic, try shifting your focus from fear and diminish your discouragement by doing! Supplement your passive “To Do” list with your active “Look What I’ve Accomplished!” inventory. The former focuses on the stream of “stuff” that literally never ends – has there ever been a time in your life when there was absolutely nothing you needed to do? Turning your attention to what you’ve actually done is a real-time acknowledgement of the progress you’re making.
Try it: as you wind down each day, consider what you’ve done, both big feats and small tasks. Going to the grocery store today may not have resulted in a page being written. But it let you stock up on healthy snacks to munch on when you write those two paragraphs tomorrow (and yes, you can record all that as accomplishments!). Didn’t get something done today? Look forward to that as one of tomorrow’s accomplishments.
And don’t forget to applaud your biggest accomplishment of every day:
The optimism I had for a brand new year is already fading. It’s only mid-January! I really did want to keep my resolutions this year.
RESPONSE:
I know, Love.
Seems like the New Year’s Eve ball has just dropped and now you’ve already dropped the ball?
Chances are the same thing happened last January too, right?
That’s no surprise. There’s no magic that morphs you at midnight. The transformation you anticipated the second the clock struck 12:01:01 makes for lovely lyrics and memorable memes, but faulty planning.
And yes, I know this is supposed to be the year of “2020 vision.” So don’t lose your resolve. Just change your focus. Even those with so-called perfect vision can only see so far!
It’s not surprising that trying to look out over the entire year all at once results in a distorted view. And it’s inevitable something will happen to blur your vision of what the whole year will look like; there’s so much you just can’t see.
But don’t put away the paper party hats – stock up!
Because EVERY day is the start of a new year! And so is the next day and the next day and the next one.
Get it?
A series of short term steps is what’s needed to execute your long-term plans. What can you resolve to do or not to do THIS day? Or this day part, or even this hour or moment or second?
Start with actually doing what you can see right within your gaze. Let that lead you, one look at a time, to the long term goals you’re envisioning.
And since hindsight’s even sharper than foresight, use that to your advantage too.
Look back proudly at each forward step you took last year, and be motivated by a symbolic celebratory toast to your triumphs.
So Happy New Year, today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow! This is New Year’s Eve,,,again,,,
