The Corona virus is keeping most of us stuck in our homes around the world. I am currently self-quarantined in Hong Kong looking at the increasing numbers of infections and deaths in the city. Although we saw light at the end of the tunnel earlier this month, many residents who fled the city in the early stages of the crisis are now returning from other parts of the world, carrying the virus and causing a second wave of infections. As a result, we see ourselves confronted with even stricter government regulations.
If we needed any more evidence that we, as a human species, are all connected, all we have to do is look at what is happening now. We are all part of a whole and the whole is part of us.
We all either do things by choice or by force. We had the freedom of choice to help one another, to support one another and to care for one another. But perhaps we have chosen to work for ourselves, make borders, abuse the environment, ignore others who are sick, hungry or poor. We were too busy choosing ‘me’. We were getting so ill as a world and are now faced with an implosion that has forced us to pay attention.
Just seeing this crisis as a wake-up call may not be enough. We now know that even if you take good care of yourself and your family, you eat well, you exercise and have all the good intentions to stay healthy, someone else may not and that will still affect you. That is our interconnectedness - no one will be cured unless everyone is cured.
The great opportunity here is that even though we are all literally forced into a small space now, we still have a choice: Those who are healthy can choose to take care of those who are not well, even with the risk of getting sick themselves. But they also have the power to make others well. One by one, as one goes, as goes the whole. And no one gets well until we all get well.
So since many of us feel stifled by this situation, there is still a choice to make. We can get out of that paralysis and can choose to cure, even if you feel you can’t. Curing by taking care of each other, by staying home, stepping out of your work role, by helping your children, supporting your parents, by taking on your most human role, by choosing ‘us’.
