Growth. (In a Pandemic.)

December 21, 2020

I have a phrase I hate. Like nails scraping against a chalkboard kind of hate.

You look really great (for your age).

You might as well be saying you look great BUT you’re old. And we all know the only truth about a sentence with BUT in it is what comes AFTER the BUT.

Never, ever use the word BUT.

Trust me that’s some of the best advice I’ve ever received. Next time you want to compliment an older person, like me, just say; You’re amazing. You inspire me. You’re beautiful. So much kinder and smarter.

Okay, enough of that. Let me get to my real point. This has been quite a year for all of us. Some had it way worse than me for certain. But It’s been a year where everything and I mean everything had a parenthesis after it.

My daughter fell in love and got married (in a pandemic).

I helped champion several meaningful new projects (in a pandemic).

I started waking five miles a day (largely because we’re in a pandemic and what else can I do).

I watched all of the internet (in a pandemic).

I got closer to my friends (in a pandemic).

We had a record voter turn-out in an election (in a pandemic).

Seriously, don’t you feel that way?

The truth is WE’RE ALL LIVING through a major historic event. Full of pain and grief and loss.  This pandemic has been the underlying TRUTH to everything we do. It’s been hard. And scary. And exhausting.

I feel all those things. But still, I’m so full of hope.

Not just because I’m wired that way. It’s bigger than that. I’m full of hope because of the innovation of businesses large and small. And the spirit and energy of the people in those businesses.

I loved seeing the small grocery where I shop change the way they operate (overnight) to keep the people they serve safer.

I love seeing not for profits raise money and help clients in need.

I cried, I mean sobbed when I saw the New York Philharmonic play on the Today Show, six feet apart. Did you know some of their musicians have been going around in pick-up trucks playing in the streets bringing live music to people? It’s a little thing, but a really big thing at the same time.

Whew. That one got to me for some reason. We need music now more than ever.

And we have scientists and innovators who have made history bringing vaccines to the world in record time. Not to mention all the supply chain folks, the people packaging and moving those vaccines to people at rapid speed right now as I type. Yes, some of it has been capitalist driven (a good thing really), but a lot it is heart and human driven (an even better thing). I feel that with every cell in my body.

We have also made meetings more efficient. Distance is no longer a factor in connecting with others. Family togetherness the norm. I could go on and on. Kids are still getting educated thanks to technology and teachers who stepped up and innovated and kept learning going (in a pandemic).

I am in awe. Absolute awe of it all. I am astonished really.

Some things have gone wrong. Badly wrong. I am sure of that. But somethings have gone right.

I love the writer Brianna Wiest. Love her words. They soothe my soul and open my heart. The other day I stumbled on this set of words. Read it three times so it really, really sinks in:

If you are not the person you want to be for the rest of your life, you must get to work right now. The truth is that it becomes easier and easier to fall into passivity, to allow our lives to be selected for us, out of ease and familiarity. The truth is the longer we stay as we are, the more deeply we are reinforced for it, the stronger the neuropathways become as we revisit the same thoughts and feelings over and over again. The truth is that you will get to the end of your life exactly as you are right now if you do not choose growth. Because growth? It isn’t inevitable. It’s optional. You have to decide you want to get better, and then you have to choose that life every single day.

Yes, this time of living life (in a pandemic) has been a brutally painful time for the world. But it is that collective disruption of the familiar that is fueling growth. And unrest. And I hope, pray really, it is changing us all for the better.

I am mean telemedicine can change the world, right?

I hope our collective neuropathways have been so altered that we wake up our thinking in even more areas. For instance, can we apply this new innovative thinking to things like Climate Change and Racial Equality and Mental Health?

Can we try? Will we choose growth?

I know personally that pain, real gut-wrenching loss and pain (and like all of us, I have had my share), has been a huge driver of growth and learning in my own life. No one comes out of pain without a wiser, stronger soul.

Let’s do that as a world. Let’s do that. Let’s make this (in a pandemic) growth work hard.

So, go back and re-read Brianna’s words above. What are you going to do now?

More from me personally on that topic soon. Stay tuned. I am going to try writing every morning to see where that takes me. So hopefully you’ll be hearing more from me. And by the way, if you’ve read this far, thank you. It means a lot to me.

Love, Robbin