Since I can remember we have never had to deal with so much negative energy “as a whole society” ever before.. now of course I can’t say the human race has never dealt with anything like this ever before BUT in my time, in our part of the world – not like this year!
What about you, your family, your friends how are you and everyone you know holding up? Some of you either have experienced devastating challenges as well as loss and/or you know someone who has.
What are you doing to get through these challenging times? How has 2020 changed you?
This has definitely been the year of clarity for me and my family. I always respected life as short and fragile in many ways. Loss is a part of life which is and will always be inevitable but in 2020 as a society we have seen loss in staggering, unimaginable numbers!
We have witnessed how fragile our society is when we watch people turn on each other and yes we have witnessed this before but we now see people who would never hurt anyone turn into vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands, destroying other people’s lives because they have lost, they are frustrated, they are hurt!
What can we do? What is the solution? Who can fix this?
Maybe certain key players who are in power in the world could have handled things better, maybe you or your neighbor could handle things better but you know what really pisses me off?
When other people make me feel like I am the problem for wearing a mask, or worrying about COVID-19 killing someone in my family such as my 5-year-old granddaughter who last year prior to COVID-19 almost lost her life over a common cold as her lungs collapsed due to her being immune compromised – what is going to happen if COVID-19 hits our household – someone is going to die.
So I’m not being over dramatic I am in protection mode!
What about you how has the pandemic (which I add we had nothing to do with the creation of this issue) affected you? Are you surprised at how it has brought the worst out in humanity?
Now in saying that I also have witnessed some amazing outreach by people who for lack of better words, sacrificed their own safety to help people whom they didn’t even know or they could have turned the other way and ignored what was taking place.
As an example on a smaller scale… my son who was a security guard in a very busy city caught many culprits taking advantage of the pandemic and stealing with the intent of reselling just to make a profit for themselves(they actually didn’t need to, it was greed).
There was this one fellow who came in to his store and stole a phone charger, upon arresting the young fellow, my son asked why he was stealing, what has made him want to steal. It was obvious he had never done this before.
As a quick side note most times when my son would arrest people he was always curious to know why people would steal, sometimes it was obvious but other times it didn’t make sense – sometimes he found himself giving people breaks (before COVID-19) and talking to them and directing them in a way to help.
So back to this young fellow… he proceeded to tell my son that he has no money, no job and no where’s to live. The only thing he had left was a cell phone for which he had lost the charger. He said he seen a really nice expensive charger which would have been great but he stole only what he truly needed – a $20 charger to get him through… he said because of COVID-19 he was in this situation – his employer was shut down and he didn’t qualify for any type of funding due to mistakes he made in his past. He then said he can deal with a lot but if he loses his ability to use his cell at Wi-Fi centers he can’t keep in touch with the world he knew, then that would be the last straw.
I’m thinking a cell phone really, I can’t relate to that and thank god I have been fortunate to not have to. I have been down on my luck many times not knowing where I was going to get $10 but never homeless and never without some kind of morale support.
This guy had “nothing” and just for the record my son found out about all of this only because he was persistent in finding out why this guy would steal a cheap ass charger when his record proved he had never been charged for anything and by the way he went about stealing the charger… my son knew this guy wasn’t good at stealing.
So my son who takes his job serious and would normally just send the guy on his way without charging him as he felt bad for him and believed in the guy… he decided to have the fellow who stole the charger sit in room by himself and told him to think about what has taken place but he would be right back.
He came back and gave the guy the charger he stole and gave him some places to go where they will help him, give him rest and feed him. He then sent him on his way but the young fellow was puzzled.
He asked my son why would you allow me to steal this charger after basically arresting me for the exact same thing. My son proceeded to tell him “I’m not letting you steal it, I bought it for you as a gift to help you out and I hope you take some of my advice and seek the help you need and I hope life treats you better as right now you are just down on your luck but things will get better” WOW! – That’s My Boy!
I tell this story because you have to know my son, he has a good heart but if you met him in a dark alley you would crap your pants as this guy is big and scary looking by times especially in his role where he has to be serious and not let people steal merchandise. He has been in situations where he has almost been knifed, shot at, he has been punched in the mouth and lost teeth but he still shows compassion to those who deserve it and even sometimes to those who don’t deserve it!
Why can’t we as a human race regardless of colour, sex, background etc show some moments of compassion to others?
Why haven’t we learned that other people have feelings, have family, are human beings who hurt the same as all – their stories have made them who they are and their circumstances encourage them to behave the way they do – the only thing I encourage you to do (if nothing else) – the next time you see someone who pisses you off ask yourself why and try to look beyond the immediate performance and think “What has happened to this person to make them act this way or talk this way” – this can help diffuse a very volatile situation. I know this for fact as I have been in some very serious situations that could have been life changing in a very bad way but here I am talking to you today!
I am interested in knowing about your experiences with COVID-19 and impact it has had on your life – just know you may be in a difficult situation and it may seem like no one cares but I can GUARANTEE you somewhere out there in the big bad world, somebody cares.
Be Blessed!