While QuaranTEAMING

 The cost of freedom is incalculable. Never knew the importance of being able to determine the course of my daily schedule without getting stifled in a fear of getting sick. COVID-19 sweeps across the world in a blink of an eye, killing at least 54 people in Virginia, where I live. I do not mean to narrow my background by ignoring the wider context. I just want to stay optimistic with a less death toll and seek my opportunity to actively reinforce my safety precautions in my immediate surroundings.

The terror and burden of this infectious disease has posed a high health risk among all of us, especially among our young children. While quarantined at home, my little one reminds me constantly that we get a virus update from our Google Nest, a smart speaker. The sudden change in their environment has a profound impact on these little minds. Many of them are adapting ways to the evolve changes in their lifestyles. Getting accustomed to the online learning, playing, and keeping them occupied inside their houses, 7 days a week, is a new normal today. All I think at this time is this loss of little human experience is unfathomable. Life cannot simply fit into these cramped parameters, for long. Some days almost felt like the media is spreading the virus, the most virulent version of COVID-19, much faster than ever existed. It is one thing to help people stay informed about its potential threats and another thing to spread sensationalism and misinformation. Amidst the uncertainty and unprecedented level of real-time information at our fingertips, all I can tell you that the fear is spreading at the much faster rate the infection itself to our neighborhood.

Whatever is going on outside the four walls of our living space, times like this, we must remind ourselves that our collective human efforts cannot bet any competition in the world. The idea of collectively have a strong normative force. We may not realize it, but we all affect each other in many different ways. We overlap astonishingly with our interconnected living space in a complicated Venn diagram. This also imply how individual behavior is critical not only for the self but for society as a whole. The recent proof to that is how Italy is paying its price for living in an open society. As much strong as we are, also vulnerable. We are both powerful to escape and susceptible to succumb to sickness. From Black Death to plague to cholera to Spanish flu and SARS- infectious diseases have shaped people’s lives for centuries. COVID-19 is not going to be an exception for sure. We are witnessing the unthinkable power of the outbreak.

An enticing fact to the people losing their jobs, more people getting sicker, more deaths than very before, stock market crashing, current health system getting overloaded, countries surviving in bailouts, etcs etcs, there is also a bright side to delve. Let’s not forget every coin has two sides. With every weakness, comes the strengths and every threat comes with the opportunities. It is bringing a systemic change from healthcare to business to education to pretty much all facets our lives. This era could be the test for the technology for its speed and innovation. We have already started seeing this with work from home, online teaching mode, fewer fuel consumption, saving energy, less pollution, more family time than ever before. I must say Holy Cow to the later!!! Along the line of the previous opportunities, the current crisis provides the opportunity to reconsider our lives to make it more enriching to ourselves. We must also reorganize it in a way that cause less impact to our planet. There is indeed, irony in the fact that we need to learn all over again how to enjoy those things that children seem to have such a spontaneous relationship with: dirt, grass, dandelions, the birds, animals-cats and dogs. Respect and love the nature as nature will do the same for you.

My mind is muddled and today’s post is dedicated to all those front-line workers from healthcare to grocery stores to supply chains: truckers, mariners, warehouse workers, factory workers, scientific communities for their relentless quest and research and others who keep our lives safe and comfortable while putting their own lives at risk. Their actions have indeed changed the course of  history. They have set us an example of courage and humanity. Let us all stay safe, stay positive and stay kind so we could redefine our existence that have surfaced beneath our freedom. 

 “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

– Victor Frankl