It isn’t the virus. It isn’t natural disasters. It isn’t mass shootings, or even nuclear war.
It is the unknown. I’m feeling it. Everyone I’ve talked to is feeling it, and its really more scary than all of the things I mentioned before combined.
Not knowing what is going to happen next. Will I have work tomorrow? Will there be money coming in next week? Will I have to stay at home for weeks on end? Do I have everything I need to survive that? What if I get sick?
These are literally the questions plaguing everyone around the world right now. We are just starting to feel the pinch of this.
My livelihood already depended on use of the internet. Most stuff, like writing these blog posts, I can do from my phone or connect to my mobile hotspot and do from my laptop.
When needed, I could head to my favorite coffee shop and use their highspeed internet, for the really heavy lifting stuff. It helped me save on living expenses to not have Wi-Fi at home.
This past week, that has become less and less of an option. The government has ordered a shut down all restaurants, bars, and coffee shops except for curbside or delivery. No more working from my favorite coffee shop.
What is going to happen when I get a heavy lifting client and can’t get somewhere to do the work they need me to do?
For me, the answer is improvise. Figure something out. Its what I’ve always done. Adjusting my expectations and modifying my expected results to be happy with the outcome, even when it doesnt look exactly how I planned.
That doesn’t sit well with some people, and I’m more afraid of their responses. Those are things I cant control. Not that I want to, but people not getting what they want when they want it can cause them to do some really crazy and scary things.
We haven’t seen much of that here yet. At least not outside. I imagine a lot of it is happening behind closed doors. Always is, but this is different.
This is far reaching and even the people that are really good at maintaining most of the time, are going to find and reach their breaking points. Its only a matter of time before it spills over into the streets.
What happens when it does? This is the stuff that plagues my nightmares. People doing stupid and crazy shit. I’m feeling it. I’m sitting in the truck in a bus hub parking lot because there is no place else to go and being at home with people stressing out is more than I can take.
What do I do when this isn’t an option anymore? When things completely shut down and I’m locked in the house with people that already struggle to control themselves?
I can’t suggest this to my household because doing so would incite trouble we don’t need. I can just write it out and hope that someone else sees it and it makes a difference for them.
This situation is stressful for EVERYONE. Even the people that don’t seem to be struggling as much as you are, the unknown is touching EVERYONE right now.
No one, and I mean no one wants to lose anything in this mess, but everyone will lose something. From billionaires to the poorest of the poor. There are going to be those that reduce the impact that has on a person in their mind, and they will be much less understanding and considerate of others. It started ages ago and is only going to get worse as time goes on. This alone will be the downfall of humankind.
We will survive the pandemic. We will survive an economic crisis. We will survive natural disasters. We will not survive each other.
This has to be turned around. We habe to figure out how to be kind and considerate of others. We need to simply see each other as people again, and I’m afraid that we are already past that point of return.
We are not all sick. We feel for the people that are, but know that not everyone is. So, we completely change how we look at behaviors, like buying toilet paper or wearing scrubs. These things were not threats to us 2 weeks ago. Today, some think that they are.
We are armed to the teeth. We have no kindness or consideration of anything anymore. Not people, not property, and definitely not other people’s things. So, where are we heading from here?
I shudder to think.
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