“Wake me when it’s over,” is a natural instinct during a short-term interruption in our usual pattern. A crisis is there to be managed or waited out. The goal of each day is to simply get through it. Until things are back to normal.
But sometimes we’re dealing with a lasting crisis. Where the number of days is not small enough to simply throw them away. In a lasting crisis, the pattern of only getting by undervalues our long days and diminishes our ability to contribute.
In this case, we have a chance to accept a new normal, even if it’s temporary, and to figure out how to make something of it. Of course, you haven’t wished for it, but it’s here. There’s very little value in spending our time nostalgic for normal.
When we get to the other side of the lasting crisis and look back, what will we have contributed, learned & created?