We’ve all read about how the pandemic has created the Great Reset for millions — people changing jobs, leaving industries, searching for better work conditions, better pay, more meaningful work. It’s exciting.
But I’m also sensing another trend, and that’s a deep collective sense of why bother.
Personally, I think we can find plenty of reasons to bother, to create, to care, but then, we look out at the world, we sag with disbelief at the cynical lying, gas-lighting, and endless outrage…
…the Delta variant and the grinding exhaustion and horror of the pandemic, the burnout of our healthcare workers, teachers, and families, the stupidity of people who can and yet refuse to get the vaccination…
…the extreme weather, fires, floods, smoke that spreads for thousands of miles, and our growing climate anxiety…
Altogether, it’s quite a load for our human brains.
This much turmoil is very difficult to process.
We all naturally want to move on, to get back to normal, but there is no normal to get back to.
Life has changed forever.
Truth is, it’s always changing, but during times of great upheaval, this truth can no longer be ignored.
Trying to grasp the past will not help us create a Great Reset, personally or collectively.
We have to grieve first.
To find ways to deal with our collective pain, to wrestle with what has happened to us, what is happening to us.
Perhaps conversations with people you trust will help.
Or art you make to give voice to the fear and sadness.
Maybe meditation or a prayer practice to steady yourself in the unknown.
Perhaps my last book could help.
Whatever we do, my gut tells me a certain level of why bother will continue to gnaw at us until we make time and space for the immensity of what we have faced and are facing as a species.
Thank you for your courage in thinking about this.
