Reflections focused on the Coronavirus (COVID19) Pandemic

March 27, 2020

What you are going to need, as this crisis across the country really begins to bite into almost everyone’s personal life and need for survival:

1. During this “pandemic” have great patience to act, combined with an attitude to take action immediately when it becomes necessary. Thought cannot be put aside to be overcome with reaction to circumstance because this circumstance is brand new to almost everyone’s existence.
   Don’t get mad.
2.  Do not listen too seriously to most reports you get about what‘s going on. The media, leadership in the rear, and those who are self-proclaimed experts are notorious for being held to have been totally wrong over time. This is an integral part of the human condition.
   Don’t get mad.
3. Be prepared for emotional tirades and acting out on the part of regular citizens. Road rage is going to go up, as is rage expressed in supermarkets and other places people are still allowed to gather. Do not react. Think and retreat. The battle’s winners are not those decorated later on for giving their lives out of gaining glory or demonstrating valor in the fight. It goes to those who are still alive.
   Don’t get mad.
4. Hold your assets close and fail to respond to almost all requests to diminish them. Part of going into combat, a huge part, is understanding that what you don’t know about what you will encounter is much greater than what you know or think you know. There is no training for this. You must adapt and that means you must first be ready to adapt. And yes, this is a very likely form of combat although hopefully not truly violent combat.
   Don’t get mad.
5. Understand that this will be over one day, and probably one day soon. Do not hold back in expressing your positive understanding of that to those who love you and surround you. They need your leadership, not just your participation right now, and part of leadership is acting. Things are not, or do not appear to be, real by accident, for the most part. Things become real because you make them real. This is not the time for you to pull back and express how bad things are or how you can’t cope. Think, act, and then think again before you act again.
   Don’t get mad.