This pandemic is teaching our society a lot.
And F#$K the cost of those lessons. Over 800,000 have died in the US alone with 5,340,000 worldwide.
Friends, neighbors, strangers, workers—too many to name. Our economy is stretched, our communities feel torn, and our memories are too short. It has been a lot.
In the middle of crisis, sadly, lessons abound. Vision is clear. Discomfort, for better or worse, awakens sleeping souls.
It shouldn't have to be this way. We shouldn't have to survive a pandemic and look back in gratitude at the gifts. There are no free gifts in growth. It all has a price, and as a culture, we need to get better at growing on our own.
It shouldn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be this way.
Far too often, we sit in social, emotional, mental, and physical atrophy. We seek this atrophy through modern comforts. Then, when the storms of life hit our shores, we snap out of it. And, if we make it through, we are humbled by what we have learned. And you know what we do next?
We get back to being comfortable.
Sure, when the lemons of life are in our cup, lemonade is ours for the making.
But what would we look like if we were always in the business of making lemonade? Not just when it's required, but deliberately when it's not?
This looks like Human growth hard earned on our own terms.
This looks like us being prepared for hard times, not shaken awake just in time to barely survive them.
This looks like us growing not just for ourselves but for the communities within which we exist and depend.
We become resilient. Those around us become resilient.
We, most importantly, wake up and start living.
We become ALIVE.
As we end this year, consider how deliberate moments of uncomfortable growth can help you LIVE in the next one.
Let's honor the losses that have taught us this far by being ready to lead the next time losses are at our shore.