I was talking with a friend yesterday. His office is effectively
closing. All staff who can work from home, must work from home, even if they
prefer to come in. We all need to take this approach. If you have the ability
to work from home (your company allows it, you can do your job, you have the
right technology in place) you should. We owe it to all the folks who don’t
have that same flexibility: first responders, medical workers, check out people
at the grocery store, food service workers and on and on. And don’t forget
about the farmers. My dad reminded me of them today. There’s a time to sow and
a time to reap and the crops don’t care what else is going on. Hunkering down
is the only way to blunt the spread of the virus and if we can we must.
The Washington Post has a great visualization showing the impact
of social distancing on blunting
the spread of the virus.
Most schools, colleges and universities are moving to online
instruction. While online instruction is great, it has the potential to leave
kids who are already behind due to lack of access to technology even further behind.
And for many kids school is where they get two meals a day. The local schools
in my area are working to get meals to kids, but the local food banks are
straining under the pressure. Help if you can.
I’ve been wondering. Is this what Climate Change will look like,
with years and decades compressed down to days, weeks and months? Maybe we
decide to listen to the science going forward.
What will you do with all that time? I get 5 hours a week back
from not commuting alone. Since I will spend much time video conferencing I
have to look presentable, but only from the neck up, so time saved there
too. We can come out of this better than we went in. We can invest time with
our families, learn, read, write, think, run and on and on and on. Or we can “Fritter
and waste the hours in an offhand way.”
Speaking of writing, write stuff down. Start a blog or journal. I
told my son today that people will be talking about this for a hundred years
and more beyond. Keep up with what’s happening and what you are thinking about.
I can see blogs and journals becoming a record of this time the same way
diaries and letters home from the front were in the past.
All we can absolutely control is how we respond as each hour and
day passes. A great message from yesterday’s Daily Stoic. https://dailystoic.com/remember-you-dont-control-what-happens-you-control-how-you-respond/. Side note, this is a
great daily email.
Be kind and stay calm. Even (especially) when others aren’t. You
can’t know what they are dealing with, fears, anxieties, family issues etc. If
you’ve got your shit together at that moment, keep it together and hope that
you receive that same grace when the time comes you need it.
Stay in touch. Leverage all the tech or just pick up the phone.
Read the local paper. The Atlanta Journal Constitution provides
excellent local coverage. I expect your local paper does too. And a good review
of the daily newspaper can help prevent the urge to obsess over the news all
day long. See above.
