Jerry Lindsey wrote this essay.
The spring and summer have entered and exited without much fanfare, but something doesn’t feel the same. Anticipation of the colorful fall transitions, Halloween celebration for the youngsters, preparations for winter, and the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas are all awaiting us, but something is missing. Have the days, weeks, and months of seclusion formed an attitude of unknowing, that everyone is striving to define? Is the pressure of the unknowing [end] of the pandemic creating a different you?
Is the hostility that is surfacing throughout the world, especially the United States of America, creating questions whose answers are not apparent? Are the doors that usually open and provide solutions not [leading you to] paths of relief?
Whatever the stimulus is, that camouflages the world which usually offers a fall of color and anticipation, it has definitely changed the world as we know it.
The year 2020 will be remembered as the funnel through which so many surprises passed and as the year that no one will want to relive. December 31 will not be a celebration of a profitable year. It will only be a reason to close the book on 2020 and start a 2021 adventure. [The new year will include] positive activities and renewed hopes of generating a happy and profitable lifestyle, that was abandoned only a few months earlier.
Recognizing a few of the challenges we are encountering today may offer an opportunity to step back. Examine a few of the hills we were forced to climb. See if there is a smaller mound or shorter path, that allows an easier formula for the same result. Today’s slower lifestyle removes the need to rush or cut corners to complete a task. That time might be used to ask one’s self a few questions which may [uncover] a better way. Just the thought of performing a chore with a renewed confidence of an easier path to the endline is a positive in itself.
Use the extra time that the pandemic has temporarily built into everyone’s lifestyle to examine the possibilities of change and how these changes may improve your tomorrows. Perhaps many of these crisis points in our daily schedule will change in a positive way.
The path to a better and healthier tomorrow carries an unknown timetable. Each of us can improve the scenery along the way. We can make an effort to improve the small chores that will unite, to make the trip a positive one.
Stay positive and healthy, and this, too, shall pass!