Stay Safe but Remain Resilient

We are going through an unprecedented crisis in our nation and quite frankly in the world. Regardless of your ethnicity, political persuasion or geographical location, dire situations have presented themselves. Tragically many have lost loved ones. Businesses have lost customers. Employees have lost jobs. Large corporations have lost stock value and quite frankly Wall Street has lost its mind!

Sadly, this crisis has also spawned ideologies and belief systems that are rather close to the line separating sanity from insanity. One conspiracy theorizes that the 5G cell towers are the cause of the virus spreading. After reading the entire piece, I attempted to ascertain the legality of cannabis use in the author’s locale. Another misguided soul said the lives of older people are not worth as much as the younger ones. Obviously, that person has never been next to a hospital bed as a dear senior loved one passed. As a person of faith, my personal belief is that all of us were created for greatness and accomplishment. You do not have to do a very deep dive into history to see that man has survived terrible circumstances and has bounced back to surpass previous levels of achievement. History does indeed repeat itself.  

Even though it may be hard to visualize, one day the current nightmare that we are experiencing will be in our ‘rearview mirror’. Our research/medical heroes will develop a vaccine and a treatment protocol that will save many lives. The businesses that have laid-off workers will have to hire scores of workers as demand for products and services begin to grow. Things will return to normal, a new normal but a normalized pattern of living, nonetheless. Like the 9 -11 tragedy, history will repeat itself. Immediately after the twin tower attacks, people were looking to their faith for answers. Churches were full and we all noticed an increase in supportive tones from those around us. When people got on a half-filled airplane, they were quiet and polite. The fear of the horror that was constantly retold on the nightly news kept us focused on safe arrivals…only! After a while, with no further attacks, people forgot recent history and lost much of the cautiousness and constraint that they exhibited at the height of their fears

I read about a perfect example of resilient, out-of-the-box, thinking. A hairdresser was unable to keep her business going due to the stay at home, social distancing, order most of us are under. She used her creative juices and made tutorials on how to style your own hair for YouTube. She then went on to show how using her product would yield the best look. The result, she is incredibly more profitable now than when she was servicing her customers one by one. The human spirit can be wounded but it will not be destroyed!

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.-Helen Keller

Eric Kelly is a professional executive career and lifestyle coach with over thirty years of experience in corporate America. He has established management development systems in the US, Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East

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