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It's time to unite

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Tanya Ryan

It’s hard to wrap my head around the reality that we’re actually living in a pandemic right now. With the countless amount of social media posts, opinions, memes, and countless articles and videos it’s made it incredibly difficult not to drown in data.

I hope that we use this as an opportunity. One that requires us to reflect on our daily practices, to work at bettering our efficacy in communication, to ask meaningful questions… to take time away from screens, take a breath, and consider what is meaningful and important.

I don’t want to be in fear about this virus. I want to be aware, educated, vigilant in protecting my own health and that of my neighbours, and I’ve certainly appreciated the reminder to commit to more thorough hand washing hygiene. But the fear response is not acting in service of any of us.

Fear is the reason that there are violent exchanges in grocery stores over toilet paper. It’s the reason for the mass spread of misinformation, and lack of critical thinking.

We’re inundated with information, conspiracy theories, facts, statistics, data and misrepresented, or illusive interpretations of that data. I hope that we’re taking the time to step back. Turn off the TV, the Facebook feed, the endless news articles… this amount of information is impossible to effectively grasp without a proper amount of mental rest and reflection.

Each one of us needs time to think critically, rationally, and find an appropriate opinion and plan. I feel that so many of us are operating in this purely reactionary state, which is leading us to make impulsive and irrational decisions.

I truly believe that we’re going to come out of this relatively unscathed, especially due to the precautions and sacrifices being taken by so many businesses and industries. All of whom are taking incredible financial losses in effort to assure our health and wellness as a community.

So when we come out of this, are you going to be proud of your behaviour and choices? Will you have been someone that helped, and made a positive impact? Or at the bare minimum, someone that did not cause injury, or create a lack of resources to someone beside you. We all want to prioritize the health of our own family - but no one of our lives is less important than the rest. It’s entirely possible for us to look beyond ourselves, even in a periods of crisis.

I hope that those that have acquired a surplus of resources - including but not limited to toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and cleaning products - are opening their cupboards and sharing with those that run out. There’s a real part of me that wants to believe that the people that have made it such a priority to accumulate surplus of resources are distributing these generously to people that are in higher risk circumstances.

Please consider the positive impact you could create at this time by investing in local businesses, restaurants, venues, and performers; this event is incredibly impactful on an economic level and I know how much these people would appreciate your support and patronage at this time.

We need to unite. Maybe not in-person for a little while (ha) … but this every-man-for-himself mentality is incredibly destructive, and counter-productive. Look out for someone next to you. If we all do that, we’ll all be taken care of.

Stay safe peeps. And wash your hands.

#SpreadKindness #NotCorona

 

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