Let hope be the antidote to fear.
Let solidarity be the antidote to blame.
Let our shared humanity be the antidote to our shared threat.
— Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, The World Health Organization

The Covid-19 pandemic feels so surreal. Yet it’s a stark reality we all face together. And we will continue to face it for an undefined amount of time. Across the globe, we are now challenged to dramatically accelerate comprehensive understanding of the illness, adapt to 24-7 life at home, away from our routines and loved ones, perhaps face a quick loss of income, teach and practice patience and calmness during a storm, maintain, or work to quickly return to, strong physical health, grieve the pandemic’s impact, appraise our emotional wellness barometer and seek support accordingly, and above all else, tolerate uncertainty.

It’s quite a list. And I’m sure I’ve left important things off.

Can we do this?
YES. Personal, familial, generational, and global history reminds us about what we have endured, survived, and grown from. We humans possess many attributes that make us fundamentally wonderful. The capacity to love, empathize, learn, adapt, ideate, as well as be creative, scientifically minded, and resilient. Together, we can manifest a path forward, through this pandemic, and into our next phase.

Social Connectivity Matters – Even While Social Distancing
We live amidst critically important recommendations for social distancing, shelter in place, and quarantine. Adhering to these literally means limited physical proximity to loved ones. It doesn’t mean however, that we can’t connect. And connect we must. Social connection and social support are part of the very life blood of being human. We are social creatures. Look around – see the marvelous ways in which we’ve built our world to directly enable connecting with each other. Brick and mortar structures and technological platforms alike have been crafted with the goal of connectivity in mind. In fact, for thousands of years we humans have garnered support, empathy, and love from each other through our conversations and written word. Decades worth of psychological literature also document the power of social support to facilitate in achieving behavior change and recovery from various conditions. Connectivity is essential for vitality, hope and yes, even offers some space for humor in the midst of it all. Let’s leverage technology to help us connect. Call, text, video conference, social-media. Any of them. All of them. Leave no text unanswered; no thread unread. Social support is a reciprocal, mutually beneficial interaction. And remember, as we walk through the real-time impact and wake of Covid-19, we must promote and engage in social connectivity & social support while simultaneously abiding by the distancing recommendations set forth by national and global scientific experts and governing bodies.

My way of connecting is writing and sharing this post. Discover yours. After all, this is the time for it.

Hang in there everyone, we’ve got this.