This Too Shall Pass
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”
We are living in unprecedented times (unless, of course, you were around in 1918 for the Spanish Flu pandemic, which is estimated to have infected a third of the world's population at the time).
The coronavirus outbreak of 2020 is making a mockery of national borders (wall-fortified or not), and we now realize how much we take a ready supply of pillowy soft toilet paper for granted. Another discomfiting realization? How much we need each other: to do the right thing, to behave responsibly, to act rationally, to think of others.
We haven't been able to rely on the dysfunctional federal government to provide us with clear guidance about how to best protect ourselves and our loved ones. An epic fail of a Trumpian circle-jerk at the very beginning of the crisis, just as the virus was starting it's spread from China, put a coordinated national response several weeks behind the curve.
This has left it to local communities and businesses to enforce the CDC- and WHO-recommended guidelines and behavior changes required to stem the transmission of this highly contagious virus. But we don't have to wait for anyone to tell us what to do. The information is now available to help us decide how to respond.
But wherever there's information there's also misinformation. It's hard to parse all of the inputs into actionable insights or a coherent plan to keep ourselves and each other safe. In the absence of a strong, authoritative voice to tell us how to prepare for the disruption, how long it will last, how to distinguish the truth from rumors, fear dominates.
And fear brings out the worst in people. Hoarding, price gouging, stereotyping and even arsenal-building. Fear tells us to pull up the drawbridge, to clearly separate "us" from "them."
The irony of this pandemic is that at the precise time when we need each other most we are being compelled to keep a safe distance between us. But we can think of each other and support each other and take care of each other in many ways which don't require close physical proximity:
by taking only what we need
by keeping our hands as clean as a surgeon's
by being aware of everything we touch
by staying knowledgeable and informed without obsessively checking the news
by remembering that we're all in this together
by focusing on the big picture -- population health and safety -- and not dwelling on the inconveniences we might have to endure for the next 2-4 weeks (or longer)
by recalling what's within your control -- how many times you wash your hands, who and what you touch -- and what's not, and focusing on the former
by not letting fear dictate your emotions
by being relentlessly optimistic
It's easy to get overwhelmed by current events, to see in every new bit of information (or misinformation) Armageddon slouching toward us from just over the horizon. But that is simply not an accurate reflection of reality. The global glass is, for the vast majority of us, quite a bit more than half full.
In Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World -- and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Hans Rosling trolls our penchant for pessimism by showing us, with data, that our world is in much better shape than we think. For example:
in the last 20 years the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has almost halved
in the last 100 years the number of worldwide deaths from natural disasters has decreased to less than half
the average life expectancy today is 72 years; as recently as 1950 it was 48 years, and in 1900 it was 31 years
80% of people globally now have access to electricity
worldwide, only 9% of people now live in low-income countries
as of 2016 only 4% of children died before their fifth birthday; in 1800 it was 44%
We have a negativity bias: we notice the bad things and often ignore or are incapable of seeing the good things. Rosling attributes this negativity bias to three things: mis-remembering the past, selective reporting by journalists and activists, and the feeling that as long as things are bad for some of us it's insensitive to insist that things are getting better.
We can unlearn this negativity bias, but only if we're aware of it. But not abstractly. We have to recognize that we're doing it when we're doing it.
This requires us to sharpen our powers of awareness (to notice our negativity in the moment during which it arises; to be conscious of when we're being manipulated), to open to humility (to admit that we often aren't even aware of certain thought patterns and behaviors) and to cultivate discipline (to remain vigilant to seeing things as they are, absent our biases; to actively change our perspective rather than give in to negativity).
This is our fate. Yours and mine. Can you see it clearly?
Through the biases and the misinformation and the sheer volume and volatility of the "news"? Through your fear and your anxiety? Can you learn to love it?
This is what will carry us through this crisis, and the one after that...
Be smart. Be safe. Good luck.
This too shall pass.