The Great Realization

I heard a guy yesterday refer to this pandemic as the great realization instead of the great recession. I started thinking about what good (because there is plenty of bad) we may have learned during the COVID situation and I would like to share some of those thoughts with you.

Speaking for myself, before COVID, I was consumed with email, text, calls, advertising, marketing, management of staff and all means of communication. I would come in the office every day and promise myself I would not spend all day answering and responding to email. For me it had become obsessive to keep my inbox cleared out. I made myself a promise a few years ago to only answer emails during certain times of the day and therefore allowing me to focus on things in front of me. Well, that was a great idea but very hard to manage. Many times, I would open my email in the morning and look up two hours later and realize I have not taken time to think, focus, plan, strategize, and lead the company.

Many people (like me) just went to work and did the same things over and over and week to week and took very little time to see the world around us.

Well, COVID changed all that. Now I have more time on my hands than I believe I have ever had. Emails, texts, calls, social media etc. have all slowed down. The first week of social distancing was kind of a novelty but by week three we all knew something had changed, possibly long term. People were settling into being with their children, playing in the yard without a cell phone, taking picnics, planting gardens, going for walks, loving on their dogs, reading, telling their children stories and planning their day around simple old school living.

It is almost like people hit a reset button in their life. They began to enjoy simple pleasures and simple things again. With technology our lives had become consumed with connectivity and instant responses. In the old days people would call your house on a rotary phone and if you didn’t answer they would call back the next day. People would take drives in the country, read a good book, sit on the porch after dinner and talk to each other. Before COVID, it seemed everyone had a cell phone with social media and instant internet and entire families would sit around with their sole attention on a phone.

Many heartbreaking things have happened due to COVID, but just maybe there has been a realization that has emerged where people are doing more simple things and enjoying simple pleasures and being involved with family and seeing the world differently around them. KT

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