CV Diary, Part Four: What's your delta?

So, how do you want to be changed by this whole thing?
 
Whether we’re working overtime at one of those absolutely-essential jobs that got no respect three weeks ago or we’re sheltering in place at a vacation home, all of us will be different people when it’s over. How different? That’s a choice we get to make for ourselves.
 
Whether we’re deeply engaged in triage or watching securely from the sidelines, each of us is adapting to new limits on travel, entertainment, social connections, medical services, finances and, most troubling of all, access to toilet paper. The onslaught of yet another “new normal” will influence how we see the economy, politics, and our fellow citizens, along with our own mortality…and morality.
 
We’re wearing the ruby slippers, though. We get to decide whether we’ll be stronger or weaker, at peace or troubled, smarter or more vulnerable. For those of us who aren’t working three jobs, this crisis offers an unusual luxury of time to rethink, to reconsider, to reorder our lives.
 
One of my favorite clients had a great response to painful setbacks that applies to our situation today. “We’ve paid the tuition,” he’d say. “Now let’s make sure we get the benefits of our education.” So far, we’ve all been paying a hefty tuition. What comes next is up to us.
 
What was it we intended to do if we ever had the time? Were we determined to get back in touch with now-distant friends? Were we going to make amends for a long-ago hurt? Did we plan to review all those questionable memes we shared and reconsider our choices? Millions of us have that time today, with nothing but inertia to stop us.
 
Could we rethink our habits and come up with a better pattern for the people we want to be and the lives we want to live? Might we look back at financial decisions and reconsider the priorities that our spending reveals? Will we remember who we wanted to be when we grew up and commit ourselves anew to pursuing that goal?
 
Perversely, time is running out as we complete the first fortnight of our social isolation extravaganza. We’ve surfed the web and played solitaire for days, passing up the quiet opportunity to reshape our decisions and ourselves. We’ve been missing out on our chance to decide, explicitly, how we will evolve.
 
None of us knows when our world will return to normal, but that date is absolutely two weeks closer than when we started this gig. As one of my friends likes to say, time only moves in one direction.
 
So, how do you want to be changed by this whole thing?
 
 
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