“Life is short” used to be a cliché. It’s now a fact of
life.
Regardless of how you personally dealt with the pandemic, or
if you were fortunate enough to avoid personal loss, the past 15 months have been hard. We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of Americans, which means we’ve
lost hundreds of thousands of family members, of friends, of co-workers, of old
classmates. We’ve lost millions jobs and countless businesses.
We all lost time and lots of it. I didn’t see my parents for
over a year. My sister in California had a daughter right as the pandemic
struck last March and I will only get to see her for the first time next month.
My godson has doubled in age since the last time we saw him. I’ll see my
grandfather who lives in Las Vegas for the first in nearly two years come July. It’s been hard.
As we finally transition to the re-opening phase of the
pandemic across the entire country – and not just the stupid states like
Florida jumping the gun – the main focus of media coverage and political debate
has been on the economic implications. We need things open to attract tourists.
We need stadiums open so teams can sell tickets. We need restaurants at full
capacity to boost revenue.
While all of that is undoubtedly true, we are missing a far
more important aspect to the re-opening that is being dramatically under
covered – our mental health.
I’m going to a Wizards game for the first time in since
December 2019 on Friday night and it feels like Christmas is coming. I bought
tickets to the Belmont Stakes. My Dad and I had gone every year since 1999
until 2020 ended that streak. Is this what normal feels like? I have plans to
see family and friends in June. I’ll be going to a baseball game again. My wife
is jumping for joy that the museums are opening again.
For me personally, I’m not going to procrastinate any
longer. I did that for far too long before the pandemic and I’m not going to fall
into that trap anymore. Life is short, you see, and I need to take advantage of
it.
For others, our work-life balance will be forever altered. I
work in public relations and the CEO of one of my clients, a technology
company, was being interviewed on his company “back to work” plan. He openly
admitted he won’t force people back in the office five days a week again
because he personally doesn’t want to go back five days a week again.
“The one thing I didn’t miss was the hours of commute each
week,” he said.
For those in service industries, like restaurants or
delivery, the pandemic shone a disgusting light on their plight every day.
Despite being hailed as “essential” workers on television, they were underpaid
and overworked. Many are telling employers to take their jobs and shove them
somewhere.
This has been played out in media and Republican circles as
a problem of people not wanting to work. But it is the exact opposite. Of
course people want to work. They merely want to feel appreciated and properly
compensated.
I read about a Chipotle worker in West Virginia who quit his
job and said he wouldn’t return for $20 per hour. It wasn’t the money that
drove him away. It was risking his life to serve anti-mask idiots who didn’t
care, with an employer that did nothing to protect him.
Our entire culture is about to go through a revolution of
one on a scale of millions. Each one of us will be a different person in summer
2021 than we were in summer 2019. It’ll be different for each of us, but none
of us will be the same.
We all acutely understand that life is too short and we’re no
longer putting up with nonsense. That could be a long commute. That could be
unsavory working conditions. That could be a job we no longer want to do. That
could be living somewhere that doesn’t appeal to us. That could be not putting
off chasing that dream any longer.
America is a different place, and I believe it will be a
better place. We’ve climbed down into the crevasse and we’ve emerged stronger, wiser,
and more determined.
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