I would think that after 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy we would have been a little more prepared for COVID-19 crisis? Yet here we are again scrambling with panic and fear. The Media is not helping either, hyping it up! But COVID-19 is different! It feels so inevitable that we are going to be infected regardless of how much precautions one takes! Social-distancing; Self-quarantene; Wash hand; Don't touch your face; Sanitize; Yet, No tests; No cure! Yes it's easy to panic and be paralyzed with fear! Logically, to me the proposed solutions seems so inadequate. But like everything else, I would like to believe that we will all learn to live with it. I remember soon after Sandy in 2020, I embarked on restructuring the Center I managed into a fully virtual office. Someone said to me "You can't be completely virtual, we need people to come in and see you!" I said "Sure they can still come to see me, but we are going virtual!!" And we did. I am so glad I stuck to my vision, reinforced and perfected the implementation of our virtual operations.
Today I received a legthy group email from a collaborating partner urging us all to "stay calm"...I smiled. I am always calm in times of crisis or disasters! I grew up in a war zone! During a time.of a brutal revolutionary fight for our freedom! My father in the middle of it all as part of the revolution! My Mom, my sister and I would have died when someone threw a Molotov cocktail bomb at our house! I was a baby then, but that was just the beginning of learning to survive in crisis! Certain rules and codes of conduct were taught and retaught to make sure we survived the war. We did! So when everyone is talking about staying calm for some of us it's in bred!! It's the instinct to survive! Over the years I have gained an appreciation of the this dark experience, because it taught me to Stay Calm, mindful and descerning in crisis no matter what the disaster is!
