Which route will you choose?

(When this is ‘All over')

I have seen so many posts on social media recently about how we will be in some new normal when this crisis is over. But what will this really look like? So many posts about how we must NOT go back to how things were. We were clearly destroying our planet, not to mention the consumer epidemic that preceded this current crisis. Many of us were losing touch with our communities, our friends and our relatives. This Covid-19 pandemic has sadly taken many lives but it has also created a window through which our world has paradoxically been able to breathe. Whilst in this socially restrictive situation, we have started to connect more through various methods, seeing faces on a screen, talking to friends more often on the phone and checking in on our loved ones, albeit remotely.

We have seen the hugely positive and fairly immediate effects it has had on the environment too.

But when lockdown is lifted, how will we truly behave? Will we all just point the finger at everyone else when we go back to normal, saying “nobody is doing anything differently”...? Will we return to the hectic fast paced polluted and disconnected world we have created? Or will we take responsibility ourselves, each and every one of us to actually change things?

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.   

- George Bernard Shaw

How will you adjust your daily routine to contribute to this change that we all so desperately need? How will you commit to creating something better?

So many of us are so quick to blame everyone else for the situation in which we find ourselves. But what if we all start looking at what we are doing rather than at what everyone is (or isn’t) doing, maybe only then positive change will actually be possible. Or perhaps you will blame your circumstances on everyone else and carry on as normal.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are they who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.

- George Bernard Shaw

What if we all just start to be accountable to ourselves, with integrity and authenticity as our standards?

All I am trying to do here is hopefully spark some reflective processes that might begin to make some small difference. Call me romantic or the eternal optimist but please, give some thought to how you will change; what you will do. They don’t have to be huge things, start small and think...

In your community? With your own health? With your own work/life balance? With your use of transport? It could be just one single thing.

Here’s my promise -

• I will make the effort to continue the communication with my friends and family, which I had let slip due to work commitments.

• I will shop locally more often (we have a lovely wine shop in the village!)

• I will walk to the shops instead of taking the car whenever I possibly can

• I will check in on my neighbours regularly

How about you?...