Calamity is a Great Teacher
My friend Jenny emailed me this quote, “Calamity is a great teacher”. She knows how much I appreciate a great quote to start off a piece of writing. These words constitute the closing sentence of an article, Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure, written by Aisha Ahmad, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto. She wrote the article for her colleagues and fellow academics, in the journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
I read the article, intrigued to learn how an academic might address a subject that I am being bombarded with via Facebook posts, Instagram feeds and news articles. Intrigued because I am feeling anything but productive these days!
Ahmad does address coronavirus-inspired productivity, however, it is her sharing of her experiences of adapting to conditions of crisis that left me feeling confident about my capacity to cope. Ahmad admits that she is struggling like everyone else to adjust to the pandemic. However, she has worked and lived under conditions of war, violent conflict, poverty, and disaster in many places around the world. She has experienced food shortages and disease outbreaks, as well as long periods of social isolation, restricted movement, and confinement.
Just to be absolutely transparent, I am paraphrasing her knowledge and copy/pasting her writing below, as her words are a powerful guide to these times we are living in. These are not my words. I would highly recommend you read her whole article if you want to learn more.
Stage 1: Security
“Your first few days and weeks in a crisis are crucial, and you should make ample room to allow for a mental adjustment. It is perfectly normal and appropriate to feel bad and lost during this initial transition….No sane person feels good during a global disaster, so be grateful for the discomfort of your sanity.
Your first priority during this early period should be securing your home. Get sensible essentials for your pantry, clean your house, and make a coordinated family plan. Have reasonable conversations with your loved ones about emergency preparedness. If you have a loved one who is an emergency worker or essential worker, redirect your energies and support that person as your top priority.
No matter what your family unit looks like, you will need a team in the weeks and months ahead. Devise a strategy for social connectedness with a small group of family, friends, and/or neighbors, while maintaining physical distancing. Identify the vulnerable and make sure they are included and protected.
Stage 2: The Mental Shift
Once you have secured yourself and your team, you will feel more stable, your mind and body will adjust, and you will crave challenges that are more demanding. Given time, your brain can and will reset to new crisis conditions, and your ability to do higher-level work will resume.
Abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. Focus on real internal change. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine… Be slow. Let this distract you. Let it change how you think and how you see the world. Because the world is our work. And so, may this tragedy tear down all our faulty assumptions and give us the courage of bold new ideas.
Stage 3: Embrace a New Normal
When your foundations are strong, build a weekly schedule that prioritizes the security of your home team, and then carve out time blocks… Do the easy tasks first and work your way into the heavy lifting. Wake up early. The online yoga and cross-fit will be easier at this stage.
Things will start to feel more natural. The work will also make more sense, and you will be more comfortable about changing or undoing what is already in motion. New ideas will emerge that would not have come to mind had you stayed in denial. Continue to embrace your mental shift. Have faith in the process. Support your team.
Understand that this is a marathon. If you sprint at the beginning, you will vomit on your shoes by the end of the month. Emotionally prepare for this crisis to continue for 12 to 18 months, followed by a slow recovery. If it ends sooner, be pleasantly surprised. Right now, work toward establishing your serenity, productivity, and wellness under sustained disaster conditions.
Ahmad continues by reminding us that we are just at the beginning of that journey, and our minds have not yet come to terms with the fact that the world has already changed. Some of us are still caught up in denial and delusion. But denial only serves to delay the essential process of acceptance, which will allow us to reimagine ourselves in this new reality.
And she ends by sharing that on the other side of this journey of acceptance are hope and resilience… We will be creative and responsive and will find light in all the nooks and crannies. We will learn new recipes and make unusual friends…. And we will help each other.”