In June of 2017, I left my position with the local health department to address what had become a life-consuming setback with an autoimmune condition (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis). As someone who’s always loved throwing myself into my work, leaving a job I enjoyed left me feeling like I was standing naked in the middle of the street. We all have various ways we define ourselves and for me those included daughter, sister, wife, runner, and whatever title was on my business cards. I took a lot of pride in my work. I defined much of who I was through my work. Being sick had already forced me to quit racing two years before, and having to walk away from my career was an even more devastating blow. As I left the office that Friday afternoon, I walked out into a void that I worried would consume me, even if the Hashi’s did not.
I ended up being off work for fifteen months. During my time away from many of the things I enjoyed most about my life – running and racing, working, adventurous vacations with my husband just to name a few, I had a lot of time to think. I’ve referred to those few years lost to the Hashi’s flare as a forest fire, and what grew back wasn’t exactly the same as what was there before. All of that time sitting, resting, and recovering allowed me to evaluate every single aspect of my life. While it wasn’t an opportunity I would have chosen, it was an opportunity nonetheless. The pause provided me a unique chance to remake my life and to reconsider my priorities. I decided what I rebuilt on the other side needed to look much different that what came before. Not only was my body not going to tolerate the levels of stress I subjected it to in the past, I realized that I wanted out of the “race” of life. I no longer had an interest in success as we traditionally define it. The title on my business cards didn’t carry nearly as much weight as I thought it did. In fact, it didn’t matter at all. What I wanted most was to maintain more space in my life. Time to be with my dog (now dogs). Time to be with my husband. Time to read, to write, to be bored. Time to be with my dad while he was still with us. Time to travel. Time to be with my family and friends.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a similar opportunity for many of us, both individually and as a society. Again, not an opportunity any of us would have chosen, but an opportunity just the same. For many of us, our day-to-day life looks very different than it did six weeks ago. The hustle of regular life has been replaced by a different kind of chaos. Gone is the rushing from place to place, activity to activity. Even for folks still going to work (not working from home), the world is very small. We’re in the midst of a pause of sorts, a collective deep breath.
In six short weeks we’ve learned who the essential workers are. They aren’t the corporate individuals walking around in suits. They aren’t the people with the money. They aren’t those in corner offices. The people we need, really truly need, are the checkers at the grocery store, the gas station attendant, the bus driver, the letter carrier, the UPS driver. They are the healthcare workers – the environmental services folks, lab techs, nurses, doctors. In many cases, they work for less than a livable wage. Some have minimal benefits, if any. How do we look them in the eye when this is over if we don’t take this opportunity to rebalance the scales? How can we continue to pretend that the inequity we’ve tolerated for so long is ok? Even as our health care workers are fighting on the front lines, health care systems are laying off staff. With elective procedures canceled, revenues have plummeted. Our health care system is so fucked up that the very organizations responsible for saving us are going broke…while saving us.
In six short weeks, the Earth breathed deep as well. Cities known for their horrific air pollution are enjoying consistently clear skies for the first time in decades. Wildlife is returning to some areas. In six short weeks, workplaces who’d maintained that it was impossible to let employees work from home, quickly figured out exactly how to let employees work from home. Suddenly, many people have much more autonomy over how and when they work. Autonomy to work when their mind is the sharpest, when their body’s most alert. Autonomy to work when it fits within their family life. Perhaps this pandemic will be what finally shakes us out of an obsession with the factory model of doing work, where how long we sit in our chair matters more than the work we produce. In six short weeks, we’ve been forced to consider how we define “productivity”, and realized that sometimes the most productive day involves not much at all.
But what will we DO with all that we’ve learned? Will we pass on the opportunity to remake our lives and our society into something more satisfying, something more equitable? Will we jump right back in to the hustle-and-bustle, letting ourselves be numbed once again by busyness? Will we allow our workplaces to go back to business as usual, to go back to playing the game of who sits at their desk the most works the hardest? Will we again punish the earth with our habits? Will we keep washing our hands?
In six short weeks, we’ve proven that we can all make great sacrifices for the collective good. Something I honestly think we’d forgotten we were capable of. Healthy people are staying home to help out their at-risk friends and family, and their local health care workers. Neighbors are getting groceries for neighbors. People have found new ways to connect with both the folks next door and friends around the world. We’re ordering takeout to support our favorite restaurants. Regular people are making masks. Health care workers are making great sacrifices to give us all a fighting chance. Yes, there are people protesting at-home orders, disregarding the policies in place meant to protect us all. But I believe those folks are in the minority. Just imagine how different things could be if we took advantage of this pause and used it to create something much more powerful, just, and fair. Perhaps we’ll value more deeply the time we spend together, the concerts and baseball games, sitting in a movie theater, going out to dinner. Perhaps we’ll value more deeply the time we spend at home, with each other.
How will YOU be different?
