Have You Learned the Lessons of the Pandemic?

We must learn from the pandemic. Too much can kill us, and yet we live in a consumer society that relies on and encourages us to be greedy. Too much food makes you fat, slows you down, and gives you diabetes; too many experiences make you jaded and bored; too many possessions slow you down and breed dissatisfaction. Balance is the key.

The need for excess

We need urgently to learn the difference between "want and need" vs. “enough." Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Our mental health suffers when we disconnect from other humans.

Medicating ourselves with “stuff” makes us even more disconnected, as recognised by Oliver James in his book Affluenza. We need to value what we have and stop the quest for ever more. Our idiocy as a race was recently highlighted by flying a helicopter on Mars when the money and effort could have been spent on inoculating the poorer countries against the virus. Until we are all safe, none of us are.

This need for excess stems from a disconnection from the collective experience of being a human on a planet with finite resources, and from viewing ourselves as different, special, or more entitled. After all, the wealthiest 1% of the planet cause double the Co2 of the 50% who are the poorest people on the planet (1).

Shifting from "me" to "us"

We need to move from “me” to us; to teach our children how their behaviour impacts others rather than focus on what they are “entitled” to. Greed stems from short-termism, encouraged by politicians and from an inability to focus on the bigger picture. It leads to misery, anxiety, and discontent. The countries that have done the best in the pandemic are run by women: New Zealand, Finland, Iceland, Taiwan, Norway, and Denmark (2).

It is women who carry a child for nine months and give birth, and although it is a couple that has children, it is predominantly women who look after those children, particularly when they are small. Small children are hard; relentless work with small glimmers of joyous feedback. They are seriously long-term and women know this; some men, too. We know that what we reap we will sow, but too many people have forgotten this. They have detached themselves from their race — the human race and their health and spirit suffer. We call it burnout — going higher, faster, better with no spiritual or human connection and it is a sure-fire recipe for misery.

Lessons from the pandemic

The pandemic gave us a chance to pause, and some have taken this opportunity to reassess what works and what is important. As a world, we have learnt that Zoom is no substitution for real human contact; even masked and distanced contact is much preferred to that on a screen. We have learnt that we need nature and that it can bounce back if we recede, rewarding us with regrowth and birdsong. We have learnt that it will bite us hard if we keep encroaching on the small pockets of wilderness left by releasing hitherto unknown viruses, fires, and floods. We have learnt that many are caring and concerned for others and will go out of their way to protect and help them — and that sadly, many will not.

What humanity needs to flourish

I suggest that for the sake of our own well-being, we need a moral and spiritual clean-up. If we don’t take heed now the planet will wreak its revenge and wipe us out, we will become the dinosaurs. Many people recognise this and are moving out of the cities, connecting with their neighbours and neighbourhoods, growing their own food, downsizing their unnecessarily large vehicles, and investing in sustainable, human, and planet-friendly forms of power.

We need to learn balance. Our young are suffering from unprecedented amounts of anxiety and depression. This will continue if we focus wholly on the importance of grades and achievements over friendships, emotional IQ, family, and love. Working 20 hours a day is not balanced. Seeing your children for “quality time” is a lie we tell ourselves. Many children have thrived in lockdown as they have been able to spend unprecedented amounts of time with their parents. Spend days with your child and you will learn what moves and motivates them. They will unfold their secrets to you in a way that quality time will never yield. Spend time with any human that you love and care about and the same is true.

Connections are all we have, and we need to spread these first through our families, then locally, and finally globally. When it comes to “things," think small — how small can I get away with? What is the minimum I need for my own health and well-being? Tread as lightly as you can on this planet and try to leave no footprints.

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If you are fortunate and wealthy, use that wealth wisely. Look at the Gateses: You could pass them in a crowd, they are so unobtrusive. Yet they are connected to mankind with global effect. This is because they have nothing to prove — no flashy cars, no collection of handbags. They are thinking long-term and expansively. I suggest this accounts for their relaxed demeanour and contentedness. They don't have the manic, "look at me" desperation of some of the people we see in the media who have achieved precisely nothing, except for themselves. These are the people who often end up with mental health problems, multiple relationships, and distanced children as they fail to focus on what matters. Only people matter, and all people matter.

In order to flourish individually and collectively, we need to focus on people and not possessions; on spiritual, connected human wealth, not things with their "how much" and "how many" and "how flashy"; and we need to do this now. The clock is ticking on humanity and we have the chance to enhance ourselves as humans, shifting away from depression and despair and towards connection and love. Otherwise, we lose the battle and disappear altogether. To precis Greta Thunberg: “Words are not hope; action is."