We have been having some work done on the inside of our house. It has primarily involved painting and new flooring. We have not addressed any of these issues in the seventeen years since the house was built. In that time, we have acquired many things in the house. Just how many things became very evident when we started to get estimates for the painting and the new flooring. The various people talked with told us what we would have to move for each thing we wanted to have done.
It became clear that most of our home routines would have to be totally changed during these projects. While I was considering these changes and how, once the decision was made to go ahead with the projects, the changes took over our lives to a degree, it occurred to me that this was similar to the crisis we are currently in the middle of. The big difference is we did not choose the current crisis. Of course, our home decorating decisions do not pose a risk to health or life. They do, however, provoke a certain level of anxiety, at least in me.
Even with agreement that the proposed projects are the right thing, there is a very high degree to which we have to give over a lot of control to others. I have observed that both in our current projects and the crisis we are in the midst of, changing the way we do things can be very stress provoking.
What do we do next can be a highly emotionally charged question. In our current crisis, that question is driven from an outside force which we cannot seem to understand, let alone control. Because of the magnitude of the current crisis, there are consequences, medical, financial, psychological and social that can bring out these or the worst in each of us.
One of the most significant things about our projects as well as the current crisis is that things will be different going forward. At the beginning of this crisis, most of us talked about returning to normal. Now, more and more talk centers around what normal is becoming as we move through the crisis. Our house is taking on a new look as our projects come to completion. So many of the ways we do things in our world is changing before our eyes in ways we are only slowly coming to understand.
‘What comes next?” This takes on a new sense of urgency when we realize whatever it is, it’s undoubtedly something we will have to get used to. It is a certainty we will get used to and likely come to really enjoy the changes in our home. I, for my part, am not certain how many of the changes coming out of our current crisis I am going to enjoy. As we move forward, it might be interesting to think of some times in our lives when we have had to ask, “what comes next?” Was it in excitement, like our projects, like graduation, marriage, the birth of a beloved child? Was it starting college, a new job, starting a vacation? Or was it like our present crisis?
Even in a crisis like our present one, some things that come next can be good. We can find things coming next that we can look forward to. As we move forward, let’s look at what comes next in terms of the possibilities. What is one good thing you can see coming next out of this current crisis?