20-March-2020
Currently at time of writing, the world is grappling with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, perhaps it is timely for people to pause for a moment, to take stock of your life and reflect. After all, if you are anxious on whether the virus will get you and fretting on whether to brave the outside world (eventually – provided it’s allowed), then there is no better opportunity to have a break now and think about what you are actually doing with your life.
The COVID-19 virus is out of your control (and it is arguably out of control also), besides taking some personal measures (like hygiene, distancing), there is not much more you can do – unless you are one of those front line health workers or developing a cure. If it is not this particular coronavirus, there will be other viruses (i.e. the flu) lurking around. Plus there are plenty of threats like climate change, nuclear holocaust, asteroid strike, etc. Closer to home, are you getting enough exercise, eating the right foods, look left and right for traffic before crossing roads? Fair to say, some ‘bogeyman’ is out to get you (eventually).
As day follows night, the sun will rise and people will go on with their lives. Meaning the bogeyman didn’t get you yesterday and the day before. In fact, your age x 365.25 days is the number of days you’ve beaten the bogeyman. Well done! (Air) High Five! Whether it is by luck or other means, you’ve survived and the question is, how long you can keep this up? (NB: The global average life expectancy is 72.6 years for 2019.) That’s the dilemma of the future, we just don’t know and we are very uncomfortable with not knowing, hence the panic about the virus.
Let’s hypothetically say, you were given an advance notice of your time expiring. It can range from tomorrow, to a year, to say another 50-90 years from today. Most people, if given this (sad) news would plan to do things differently from that point of time forward. As we are now able to frame how much time is left and allocate the remaining time to do the things that are most important to us. Maybe it is to record a goodbye message, spend time with love ones and/or to do something that you’ve always wanted to do but have held off for whatever reason. That is to say, our focus will have changed and our priorities too. More importantly, we’ve awakened ourselves to finally realise time is precious and perhaps we’ve gotten a few things wrong over the years.
So with this thinking in mind, how did you live your life? Did you live the best life possible? Do you have any regrets and if you did go, did you leave a lasting legacy, something worthy of future generations to remember? If we are honest with ourselves, most people would say, no, that they could have done better. Yours truly certainly falls into this camp and recognised that there is much, much more work to be done. Sure, there are some (and limited) successes but they are not exceptional, certainly not something to boast about. That is not to say we should be dismissive of what we have gained/achieved but rather, to acknowledge life could have been different (and better) if we lived more wisely.
Look, we might console ourselves that our success was limited due to our circumstances, or perhaps we weren’t born with the greatest combination of DNAs – i.e. talent and looks, or hindsight is stunningly beautiful. The reality is and the really insulting part to our ego is, there are plenty of people who have less and they have achieved more. Simply because they have worked out their priorities and put in every effort into achieving their version of success.
The Coronavirus crisis has forced us to look out for ourselves #1. Whilst the virus is definitely scary, the real tragedy lies with the ugly truth that is revealed about us and within us, mainly we have for too long squandered our time and our lives in the pursuit of the trivial. The additional irony is, the virus adds more challenges and disruption to our lives, even if by now you have the best intentions to do better.
So on this rude wake up call, on how most of us are severely under prepared, on how we are mostly helpless in a major crisis, on how fragile our lives really are, we must toughen up. To recognise our fallacy, to change and strive for the better. For tomorrow will come and we might find ourselves in the same state as yesterday and that’s just beyond tragic. Luckily, you have the rest of today to work out how to better yourselves and for humanity.
Struggle Perpetual 