There Is No Off The Hook

A close friend of mine has a business that used to involve them traveling to a number of locations on the West Coast all across the year. The impact of their work is important, it’s meaningful, and the travel to do it has been a grind. They’ve been scheming how to travel less for their business, how they can work from their beautiful home more and how they could spend more time engaging in the things they love. This led them to taking classes, attending seminars, and learning a lot on how to actually make these dreams happen. They were, theoretically, ready to go and execute changes but they didn’t act on them.

That is, until COVID-19 swooped in and changed the world thereby forcing my friend’s hand.

I was talking with another friend not long ago who was wondering if Burning Man was going to happen this year. They were hoping it would get cancelled. I’m sure there’s a number of reasons why they hoped this, and the only one they mentioned was that in the event of its cancellation my friend would be off the hook for their responsibilities at it.

Instead of holding up a boundary this person is hoping COVID-19 makes that unnecessary.

COVID-19 isn’t special in it’s role to back people into a corner where they’ll need to make a change to adapt to circumstances or make their lives better.

I had to get laid off from my first job after college to go and find something better. I was thinking about doing this for months leading up to being let go.

A former partner was unable to find a job until I ended the relationship and she moved out. She then got a job within 2 weeks.

My relative resisted getting shoulder surgery until they were on the verge of losing health insurance for the initial injury. They’ve since been grateful they followed through with the procedure.

This is all relatable. It’s all understandable.

Change can be hard and really scary whether it’s coming from financial uncertainty, needing a roof over your head, going under the knife for surgery or anything else.

I can’t help but feel some humor around this with COVID-19.

What are we resisting so hard that it’ll take a literal pandemic to get us to change?

What if it didn’t take a pandemic?

COVID-19 is going to calm down at some point. We’re all going to figure out the new social norms for taking care of our own health and the health of others. Eventually we will be able to hug again, go to concerts, go dancing with new faces, enjoy farmers markets, and so on.

That isn’t right now. It isn’t next month. It isn’t the month after that.

And it will come. When it does, will you default to your defaults or will you do the work to be who you want to be? Can you start to do that right now? Building the resolve to make deliberate change without a gun to our heads is a skill. It will not come on its own.

Find what does it for you. Whether it’s thinking nice things about yourself while you brush your teeth, downloading Android Studio right this very second to start making the app you’ve been thinking about, or repairing your relationship with your loved ones, make that first move. If your first idea is too big, make it smaller until you can act.

One of the best things we can do for ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities in this time of social-distancing and self-imposed quarantine is to choose as active agents in our lives. There’s a lot that’s out of our individual hands and we must not lose sight of what is still within our grasp.

Dream. Choose. Act. Big and small.