Let’s Not Return to Normal
I'm not so sure we should go back to the way things were. The past year (2020) undoubtedly has been a series of extraordinary events, shared by the entire world - seems like a once in a lifetime occurrence for each person across the age spectrum on the earth to be connected by one event. And even more notable is that a bat brought us to that common ground.
Yet, the pandemic worked out so differently for us depending on our ideologies, wealth, status, and health.
For me, much of 2020 included intense reflections and observations that gave life to new inspirations for how I approach the future. It hasn't been easy doing so -- there were moments of suffocation, feeling overwhelmed to a degree I wasn't familiar with. I'd imagine many of you are right there with me on that. My oxygen source became deep thinkers who helped me put structure around my free falling thoughts.
Arundhati Roy wrote in her essay, 'The Pandemic is a Portal',
"in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice and our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Once I read that, my feelings and thoughts quickly began to take form. I have since hinged on this whole thing being a gateway between one part of my life and the next.
While none of our worries, questions, anxieties, and even some cases triumphs (especially if you're one of the seven companies holding up the S&P that have created all kinds of smoke and mirrors about our economic strength) are going to disappear between December 31, 2020 and this new year, it is a clear and classic milestone that offers an opportunity to reflect and reset.
Here's what I took away from 2020:
On the Election: For so long, I felt trapped between a terrible choice and a not so great choice. This conversation helped me approach it with positivity and an open mind. Thank you Noam Chomsky and Anand Ghiridaradhas for having it and sharing it.
On the Protests: That has been unbelievably hard work that paid off. I have deep gratitude for the indviduals who committed their time on the ground and because of their persistence, dramatic shift has resulted in acknowledging the racial disparities in every aspect of our lives. This recognition and acknowledgment of life not being fair and equitable for Black people made it to the mainstream. People began discussing their conversations through the lens of racial equity for all oppressed communities. And this started happening in rooms that would not ever engage in these conversations, where it had been taboo until now. That has effectively disappeared -- to me that is huge.
It felt as if it happened overnight, but we know there is no such thing as an overnight success. Such remarkable achievements are tied to the hard work of generations of people who have done and continue to do the necessary work with the same level of excellence and gusto whether someone is watching or not. They have had to maintain centuries of focus that's on par with Lewis Hamilton when he's in that driver's seat. Because this work is also a matter of life and death.
We've all been passed the baton by these exceptional people to keep our attention on this, and we must carry the hard work forward to create more just and equitable conditions. We will all benefit.
On the Kids: The kids will probably not be alright. I deeply hope that I'm wrong on this one.
On We're All in This Together: Yeah, right.
On QR Codes: I’m not sure who had a better comeback, QR codes or cauliflower.
On Zoom: Nothing to note, people used Zoom before Covid.
On Working From Home: Now everyone can verify that your friends who worked from home before Covid, actually were working, and were probably working more. Shame on you for thinking otherwise.
On the Health Care Industry: Now we know just how behind we've been and how capable we are when we're not blocked by tradition and the status quo.
On the Hotel Business: Probably should've been cleaning rooms with the same thoroughness that you're now so excited to promote in your marketing campaigns.
The plan now?
Keep going with all this new information we have had the chance to acquire while being light on our feet - ridding ourselves of the unnecessary, the dead weight, the meaningless occupants in our minds.
It's an evolutionary point, and the guess work has been taken out on what traits are necessary to thrive in this whole new world.
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As a family business, we have been straddling generational and ideological divides. Our challenge now is to better understand the broader impact of our choices, and rethink how we do our work. This will be a lifelong journey in examining our past choices and undoing what has been problematically at odds with the way we want to coexist with the world around us.