Why We Need Hope
I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and were as safe as possible. The COVID-19 seven-day average continues to stay over 150,000 cases per day. We’ll find out in a couple weeks how we did during the Thanksgiving holiday related to masking and social distancing. It’s difficult to be without family and friends, especially over the holidays, but the one thing we can take solace in is that this is temporary; the better we all follow the rules, the sooner we can all be together again.
It reminds me of an interview a well-known business advisor had with a prisoner of war in Viet Nam years after the war ended. He asked who did better in captivity—people who were optimistic about rescue or those who decided they would simply endure? The answer surprised him: the optimists did far worse than other POWs. The optimists would say, “We’ll be out by Christmas for sure!” Then Christmas would come and go, so they would pick the next significant event and say the same thing. The events would pass, one after another, and soon, the optimists lost all hope.
Don’t do that. One thing we have is hope. The current treatments for those who get COVID are better than six months ago, and they will be better tomorrow as we learn more about the disease. Vaccinations will start soon and while the distribution will take time, there’s hope for those who are most at risk. If we do all we can with the things we can control, there will be an end to this. We don’t know exactly when that will be, but it will happen. Until then we grind it out, we endure. We’re tougher than we think we are. Let’s prove it.
What are you prepared to do today?
