I consider my immediate family fortunate to be healthy and able to shelter in place together in our Bronx apartment with our mini poodle. We overlook the Broadway Bridge and the Harlem River Ship Canal, blessed with great light, a cross breeze, and a Hopper-esque industrial view complete with trains, planes, boats, bridges, and trees.
Directly across the water, we overlook New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. Pre-COVID, it was just a nice view. Since COVID it has taken on a different veneer. At 7 pm the cacophony of pots and pans clank from rooftops and casement windows to cheer on the frontline warriors battling the unseen enemy across the water inside the hospital that was once just a building. Now it is a place of worship that commands reverence. The number of ambulances constantly crossing the bridge with their wailing sirens that cut through the day and night are finally and thankfully waning. This is a time of broken hearts and mending society. This is a time of deep learning.
One of the things this pandemic has taught me is how easy it is to live with less. I’ve learned to save in places I hadn’t considered before. What do I need to do my job? Reliable internet, a computer, a desk, my brain, my experience, passion, talent, curiosity, drive, fingers (one benefit of being a writer), and creative partners (which I have in abundance just one Zoom call away).
Frankly, anything I’m spending money on today is pre-COVID costs like web hosting, domain names, subscription fees, high-speed internet, etc. I’m considering each one of these expenses under a new lens of what’s essential from now on. What do I need for the future of my business? What do I need to serve my clients best? What do I need to serve life itself through my business?
Like many Americans, I am currently unemployed. Two projects scheduled for March evaporated. All my clients have gone quiet.
My life partner and I are raising our 10-year-old adopted daughter. She attends an independent school in NYC, now on-line. New York City is on shut-down through June 13, as of now. Summer camps are closed. The future of business and life is uncertain. But the reality is, it has always been uncertain. As much control as we might have imagined we had over any of it, this pandemic has crushed. The only thing we can control is who we are being in the face of uncertainty.
I’m a business owner of a branding collective dedicated to helping build companies and organizations with a higher purpose, including sustaining life on earth. I also am a gig worker, a freelance creative director, who, until now, has been hired off and on for decades by big ad agencies and digital firms to do creative campaigns for their clients. COVID-19 has given me pause during the Great Pause to consider the future in a new way for myself, my family, and my business.
It’s given me pause to donate time to a non-profit dedicated to helping the world’s most vulnerable children. It’s given me pause to help a friend launch his business. It’s given me pause to form an exciting new creative alliance. It’s given me pause to reflect, meditate, and ponder my soul’s desire. It’s given me pause to connect with colleagues, friends, and family who matter most. It’s given me pause to think about want vs. need, in business and life. What do consumers need vs. what do companies want them to believe? What does humanity need? In any case, Truth has never been more paramount.
COVID-19 has taken the lives of at least 60,299 Americans so far to date, per the CDC. It’s ravaged the livelihoods of over 36 million and countless more who haven’t been able to make unemployment claims. It’s shuttered retail icons like J. Crew, JC Penny, and Neiman Marcus and snuffed out countless small businesses nationwide. It’s stolen the graduation ceremonies of millions of students. It’s canceled national and local sporting events. It’s halted international and national travel, weddings, reunions, and celebrations of all kinds. It’s altered the trajectory of learning for all children. It’s taught our children to fear touch, closeness, and the air itself.
COVID-19 has simultaneously brought humanity to its knees. It’s forced us to focus on what’s most important. It’s forced us to rethink our needs and to prioritize our health. It’s forced us to understand with every cell of our being how connected we all are, in sickness and in health. It’s forced us to grasp how one action or inaction can mean the difference between life and death for thousands. It’s inspired us to look in on our elderly or single neighbors and authentically thank our delivery men, mail women, and grocery clerks. COVID-19 has laid bare how racial and socioeconomic inequality has made some more vulnerable to succumb to COVID-19 than others. This virus has rubbed our collective face in the ugly truth that humanity’s unchecked and continued encroachment on the turf of wildlife has resulted in the most significant collective loss of human life in a century. All while we sit and watch the incredulous folly of elected officials ramp up the most dangerous misinformation campaign in history.
So what will we learn? What will we take into our new future? What will we leave behind? Will we live with less of what doesn’t work and more of what does? Will we feel richer buying less? Will we sit idly by less often and speak truth to power every opportunity we get. Will we make ourselves less busy and more accessible to one another? Will we complain less and vote more? Will we check in more on others and check out less on our phones? Will we live with less plastic surrounded by more beauty? Will we spend less on our hair and save more for a rainy pandemic? Will we teach our children to live with less? Less screen time and more conversation? Less stuff and more play? Less tv and more books? Will we keep more physical distance and less spiritual distance? Will we live with less fear and distrust and allow this epic of all human tragedies to teach us to love and cherish more?