There’s nothing quite like a pandemic to bring the human experience into sharp relief. The pain, grief, and suffering we’re both witnessing and experiencing give adversity a daily presence in our lives. This is at once both horrific and opportune.
I love how writer/director Julio Vincent Gambuto put it:
What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views.
Brutal, for sure. But blink and life will settle into a new normal, so now’s a good time to consider what truly matters to you.
Investigating values
Talking about values as adults may feel passé; most of us don’t take the time to question the codes we follow or beliefs we hold. But chances are what you put a premium on pre-pandemic looks different today. Crisis is a catalyst that way — naturally, we shift to figure out what’s intrinsically rewarding.
The challenge then becomes wrapping our struggles into our values, because what we value only has meaning if it’s important when life is hard. To know if they have worth, your values need to help you move forward when you can barely crawl and the obstacles in your way seem insurmountable.
COVID-19 checks all of those boxes, having shoved the world out of complacency and into a vast ocean of uncertainty. But where it displaced comfort, it’s also helped us surface core personal values.
Getting to the heart of what matters
Talking to friends, I’m hearing a lot about what’s getting them through these difficult times. Some are reveling in a slower pace, while others have stepped up being in nature by hiking, biking, and rollerskating. Baking sourdough bread has become a thing, along with epic virtual dance parties, family dinners and game nights, and neighborhood salutes to health care workers.
Wrapped up in those activities are fundamental core values including, health, family, community, love, kindness, caring, and creativity. When you pay attention to the things that help you release fear, anxiety, and panic in a crisis, you can rediscover what’s genuinely important to you.
So use the Great Pause not as a void to endure while you wait for things to get back to what was. Instead, mine it for all it’s worth, as it can be a fertile space of renewal and recommitment and a path to a more meaningful, fulfilling existence.
What You Truly Value (Farnam Street)
