Call it a “quarantine challenge.” What will your before and after photos look like. I keep seeing the memes that we will all be fat and out of shape after all the restrictions are lifted and we return to some level of normalcy. I hope not. Let’s work on being better people after all of this. Let’s work on self-improvement. Let’s look for ways to make society better; to make the economy better.
We have a choice—technically, choices. A friend shared the following quote, the other day:
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
“We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”–Arundhati Roy
This speaks to the opportunities before us—the opportunity to “imagine another world” and to fight to create it. Undoubtedly, many will choose to walk through the current pandemic “dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind” them. They are the one’s who are already complaining, judging, and blaming. They are the one’s who will quickly forget the lessons of today and return to the standard practices of yesterday. Those, however, who are “ready to imagine another world” are already adapting. They are the innovators—the solution finders. They are the ones who will devise better ways to protect the vulnerable and to improve their health and the health of other. They are optimistic and opportunistic. They have the right grattitude.
The gyms are closed. We are on varied levels of lockdown. It is easy to be lazy and get fat. It is not so hard, however, to act on even the smallest scale toward self-improvement. If we do not come out of this pandemic in better shape, Spiritually, Physically, Intellectually, Emotionally, and Socially, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Imagine the better you. Image the better health care system, the better grocery, the better school/university, etc. Imagine the better community—the better world. Image and act.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!