DANCING WITH MISFORTUNE

March 18th, 2020

Many people suddenly have a lot of free time today.  For many, this means loss of jobs, and financial insecurity, it means businesses with blood and sweat in their foundations might not make it.  It means a lot of people are bewildered and blindsided, and the shock of the emerging situation will echo for a few days.  All of these situations are nonetheless better than fighting to breathe while you watch a distressed doctor struggle over the decision of whether you should get the life-saving ventilator or if the suffering person next to you should.

For once, the sacrifice of average people, together, are saving lives.

But on top of this, the horrible and bizarre situation is rife with opportunity.  And this is not meant in the way of opportunism.  There really is some beautiful opportunity with this free time.

Novels will be written.  Apps will be built. Relationships will be strengthened.  Great habits will be formed.  Businesses will be started.  Long dreamt projects will finally begin to emerge in the real world.

Nothing is more valuable than free time, and many of us have just been handed a boatload of it.  Once the shock wears off and we gain our bearings with the emerging solutions of our individual financial situations, we will have the opportunity to pause, to reconsider priorities in the absence of many of them and wonder:

what should I do?

This alone is a gift that many people don’t get, sometimes for decades on end. Suddenly it has been forced into your life.

In years to come, many people will think back on this moment in history and be thankful it happened because of the invisible opportunity it became, the seed of time that grew into a tree of productivity and fruited with prosperity.

Sure, clean the house to help with your stress.  Buy some more toilet paper if it’s really going to make your day, but after all that settles, and you finally have the luxury to get a little bored, ask yourself:

what should I do?

The answer becomes your life.