It’s Not About You

For 80% of the world, the COVID 19 infection is not about you. If you are reasonably healthy and have no underlying medical conditions, your risk is low. Even if you do contract the virus, chances are good you will make a full recovery with no complications. It’s not about you.

It’s about:

• The 90 year old great-grandmother in frail health.
• The young cancer patient who needs access to treatment and care and who needs to not have the hospital overwhelmed and non-functioning.
• Workers in the service industry who were barely making it, and who now have no job and no income.
• People who will, for the first time, depend on the local food pantry for their food.
• Workers in the food pantry who need to remain well and who need extra donations to meet increased needs.
• People who depend on Meals on Wheels every day and who need to have people healthy enough to prepare and deliver their food.
• The immune-suppressed population who bring little to the table when it comes to fighting any infection.
• The car crash victim who needs access to immediate emergency care.
• Restaurants that are barely making it from which you can order take out.
• Self-employed people whose business has come to a screeching halt.

You are being asked to turn your life upside down and inside out for people you will never meet. You are being asked to drastically change your way of life for the foreseeable future to avert a crisis not fully understood. You are being asked to dig deep into your well of compassion and altruism and “take one for the team.”

Self-quarantine, staying out of crowds and public places is not about you.  It is about the greater good.  It is about slowing the spread of this potentially deadly virus on behalf of people who will always be strangers to you. It’s about doing for strangers what we normally do for our own families.

It’s about recognizing that we are part of one global community, one human family and that we are all in this together. It’s about recapturing a lost sense of community as we look beyond our own needs and interests for the sake of others. It’s about doing our part, and then doing a little more to assure that the most vulnerable in our midst have what they need.

This pandemic will be fought primarily on the front lines of social distancing, good hygiene practices and care for one another. This is a time for careful, but bold action. We are called to be careful in how we may be exposed and may expose others and bold in how we care for one another in our community.

The compliance and compassion we embody in this time is a pebble in a pond; the ripples go out in ways we cannot see.

People are depending on us to do our part. Let’s not let them down.