April 2, 2020 — I hope you made it through the most surreal April Fool’s Day on record. If you were a prank-ER, or even a prank-EE, I hope it helped you have a small sense of “normalcy” is this new crazy world.
It’s funny how often we can quote the wisdom of Disney characters…as Dory said, “just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!” I love that. Swimming is always forward! and forward is the only way to go, mark my words. We must keep on going. (LEARNING A FEW LESSONS would be nice icing on the cake)
And Elsa, so very wise (and possibly a minimalist)…repeats “let it go, let it go…!” We must let old things fall away to be gone forever. We can and must choose move forward and feel the good vibes. Look back for strength and lessons learned…not for regret and should-haves, blames and shames. We are in a constant state of re-frame. re-adjust, re-center. re-prioritize.
What needs to change? What historically did not work, but now it’s gotta be changed?
The answer lies in (SAFE, obviously) people-to-people interaction and support. SIMPLE yet POWERFUL support. Helping people fight isolation. It’s undeniable how time spent reaching out helps you feel better within. Every single time. The difference between feeling good about something you did (for yourself) and something you did to help support someone else?? Honestly, there’s no comparison. It’s great to do stuff for yourself, but it’s GOLD to do something for someone else. You get two-fold goodness. Two-fold “GOLDNESS”. (I just made that up! It’s a thing!)
Our world is so big and so small at the same time. Does anyone else feel that? Thanks to the media and the internet we can be easily in touch with people far far away.
My crusade, if you will, is to connect both far AND near, especially near. When it gets down to it, the “cup of sugar society” is still there. We can’t hand off sugar right now, (and sugar has been demonized anyway ha), but we CAN connect in a neighbor-to-neighbor way. If we were all of a sudden cut off from all the media, who would we turn to?
Our neighbors.
“Won’t you be my neighbor?” Thank you, Fred Rogers. Oh how before your time you were! (Such beauty in his message. But that’s a blogpost for another day)
I hear you already: “But Ryan, I’ve literally never even spoken to my neighbors and they probably think I’m weird..” “But, Ryan, I’m pretty sure my neighbor hates me. I mean, we’ve never even made eye contact much less had a conversation.”
So what? Allllll that garbage is just your Head Trash Monster having a heyday. And all that garbage is thinking from the Old Normal. Elsa called an said, “let that shizz go!” (paraprashasing of course)
Y’all, these times are different. We have been unified by this mysterious, powerful unbiased enemy.
If we can’t unify and connect with our neighbors now, in the face of THIS…I hesitate to say, what a lost opportunity. And detrimental to moving forward through this.
So just start with a wave. Eye contact. Even a smile. Everyone is afraid and unsure. Let’s seek to be afraid and unsure as a community…you never know what treasures lie in there.
Cheers! -ryan:)
