WHEN all of this will come to pass, forces from all over will convince us it is time to be normal again. That we should all go back to our ways and habits. These forces will do everything to get us back to our habitual wants and addictive needs. They may do this with intention or they may not but the end is the same. To bring us back to where we left off before this pandemic. And unfortunately most of us will fall into this trap because it is comforting and comfortable. And most of us will not even know it is a trap.
We will go back to crowded restaurants to stuff ourselves forgetting how we endured with what we had. There will be sales in malls so we will all rush to buy things we surprisingly did without. We shall go to bars and get drunk trying to forget what we should remember. We shall be enticed to spend more forgetting how simple our lives were. We shall be told to travel to far-away places discarding the realizations of how far we got in the confines of our homes. We shall be lured into parties of celebrations making us lose sight of our times spent with our families.
We shall go back and earn money once again discarding the real treasures we discovered while we had practically nothing. We will be told again that a 1.5 million watch is the definition of a real person and we shall cast aside the time we had reflecting on how short time truly is. We shall be tempted to dress to impress forgetting that at one time we wore t-shirts and shorts and we were fine with it. We shall forget how little we needed and exchange it for the extravagance of our normality. And things will get worse because they are, well, normal.
We will forget the compassion that helped us look at each other with mercy and understanding. We shall forget the depth which we had and return to our pettiness and triviality. We shall become self entitled once more forgetting how selfless we were. Our embraces will be slowly replaced with the aloofness of daily life. We shall stop caring once more and look out for ourselves again. In short we will again be normal. As if nothing happened.
But there is a choice here. We need not be what we were before. We can be what we were in the uncertainty of the pandemic. We can be our highest selves. The light in the darkness. If there is one thing I am learning now, it is simply we have a choice. People are saying that this is a re setting. A renewal.
No it is not. Once we step out of our homes it is a beginning. Once this shadow passes, it is a beginning. Once we are clean again, it is a beginning, but only if we want it to. And like all beginnings it starts with a step.
We need not go back to normal. To where we used to be, to what we were because this crisis has shown us a better way and a better self. Let us take it because it is the right thing.
In this we did not see only ourselves but we saw God peeking through our souls and hearts.