The past year has been excruciating for most of us. On top of the tragedy of over 500,000 deaths, and multiples of that ill, many survivors with lasting effects, we have all needed to alter our way of life. “The New Normal” became not only a cliché, but a necessity. Even those who have resisted the constant recommendations to stay home, mask, social distance and alter the way in which we socialize have been affected. Every single one of us.
I’m no Pollyanna, but I do often find myself trying to find the silver linings of even the worst situations. There is no intent to diminish the devastating effects of disastrous circumstances, but rather, my own way of seeking the message in any given reality that will encourage me to grow and learn from all that surrounds me.
Those of us who have been around for a half-dozen decades or more are painfully aware that since the early MTV era, culture and technology have contributed to a fast-paced style of life. The intensifying rat race has increased exponentially the demand for short clips, multi-tasking and automated everything. There are some theories that the human attention span has shortened (i.e., Time Magazine, Kevin McSpadden, May 2015; Brief, Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less, March 2014), while others question the validity of that research (BBC: Busting the Attention Span Myth, Simon Maybin, March 2017). Either way, it is undeniable that our way of life has demanded increasing speed in everything we do, while leaving a calmer, slower way of life in the proverbial dust.
Enter COVID-19 a year ago. Society as we know it was brought to a sudden halt. Everything suddenly took longer. We’ve had to isolate for 14 days if we had contact with any risk of exposure. We had to learn to follow arrows, as best we could, in the grocery aisles, and mind the lines on the floor in all shops to maintain six-feet distance. Even finding toilet paper or hand sanitizer was put on hold.
Our jobs were interrupted, some even lost. As teachers, we had to scramble to learn and teach online or in a hybrid format to maintain everyone’s health. Arts and leisure activities have been put on hold. Students who were lucky enough to have Internet and devices had to learn how to attempt school work in a virtual format.
We have had to wait to see family, to see friends, to give hugs. Celebrating life-changing events was put on hold, including tributes to the lives of loved ones lost during the pandemic. And now many of us must wait further still to receive the coveted vaccine.
I am not happy for the devastation we have endured. But I have found a bit of a silver lining. It is almost as if Mother Earth herself said to our fast-paced world and commanded, “Slow down.”
We have been forced to slow down. We have been forced to nurture our propensity for patience. Everything takes more time. We must be patient with the people and businesses that serve us. We must be patient with the essential workers who risk their own lives to protect and serve us. We must be more patient with our families and our loved ones, and all our fellow humans. We have had to exercise patience with nature herself. And perhaps, most importantly, we must be more patient with ourselves. We have had to learn the art of just breathing while we wait.
I do not know how life will look when the pandemic is under control. I predict it will not be the same as it was before. It never is. But maybe, it will be better. Maybe, we will have learned the value of slowing down, of taking a breath, and being patient with all that we encounter. I know I look forward to the day I can see students safely in person again.
I dream of the day I can see smiles on people’s faces and get hugs without concern. But I hope we never lose this new-found sense of the importance of patience. Life is too short to be in a hurry.
Catherine King, a Greenfield resident, works for The Literacy Project as a site director and instructor at its North Quabbin site.