What I’m Grateful For: Leaning In to Change 
This week I have been thinking a lot about change, especially abrupt or chaotic change. With the coronavirus running rampant in our communities, our economy in great uncertainty, the stock market bouncing around like a pinball, and for many of us, loved ones getting sick or on the front lines of response, 2020 has been like a kick in the face.
I see a lot of people who are loudly belligerent and rebelling, angrily, against being “told what to do.” I’ve been mulling it over for a few weeks and finally, I think, I understand what’s at the deep core. It’s not about freedom, rights, masks, patriotism, or the constitution. It’s about the deep, howling fear that we all feel in our guts when we try to look without blinders on at what COULD the future hold – how bad could it be, how deep could the economy sink, could could my parents die from this? What will life look like next year? Will I still be here?
It probably doesn’t necessarily feel that you are thinking that way, because I know the exact response the mind and body do when confronted by something so big, so massive, so threatening to your very life and future that you can’t actually process it. I felt that way in college, when I found out I was pregnant at 20. I felt that way when my husband left a decade ago.
Having your planned-out future ripped away from you is big. So big, that you try your best to make it not so.
Which means we probably all are doing some version of the five stages of grief – grief for the loss of feeling safe, and comfortable, and able to predict what tomorrow might hold.
Those stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance.
Thinking about it this way is giving me a lot more compassion for those I meet that are still firmly in the denial stage. Maybe, possibly, they have much more to lose than I do, and they are scared.
What I’m Reading: But What if We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present as if it Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman. I just got this yesterday, so you’ll hear more about it next week. But it’s a deeply thoughtful, insightful look at how so many – if not mostly all – of our deeply held cultural and scientific beliefs might well be known to be completely wrong in a hundred years. Definitely a thought provoking read. More next week.
Web Tip: We are over half way through 2020… is your website mobile first yet? If not or if you’re not sure, give us a call!
Quote I’m Pondering: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin
