March 16.

Originally published: 8/17/20

It’s been 154 days.

22 weeks.

5 months and 1 day.

No matter how you look at it, it’s a long time. I left my business March 16, 2020 expecting to return 2 weeks later having altruistically flattened the Covid-19 curve, while simultaneously giving myself immense damage to my business material for my summer conversations with friends.  That damage of course would be minimal and easily correctable. 

Well, we didn’t come back two weeks later and the damage that ensued was very real and for many catastrophic. I fielded frustrated and sometimes panicked phone calls and texts for a month from friends, family and colleagues across the nation. Everyone had their own version of the story, but the plot was always the same. Myself and the 14 independent business owners who rent space in my salon spent hours in group chats talking about unemployment benefits, pandemic unemployment assistance and the endless weeks spent trying to qualify for either. We debated potential rules and regulations in our industry and what the future was going to look like coming back. We were walking through the unimaginable. Nobody knew what to do, and nobody’s life was left unchanged, but we were all doing it together.

Then on May 25th a man died and a nation became visibly divided. 

Everything changed overnight, everybody took their place on the stage and the theater came alive. Comradery between family and friends became strained. Judgment between community members and assumptions about one another’s belief structures lead to contention around everything from systemic racism and science, to politics and culture. If you questioned one ideology or supported another you were labeled with everything else associated that political stance. We all begin to wonder if this is what it feels like to watch the beginning of a country actually dividing.

While the stage was being set on a national level, individual players were taking their places in the audience. Facial coverings started being viewed as both a sign of authoritarian rule to some, and fellow human respect to others. In many people’s opinion, your choice to mask or not made your personal political stance public knowledge.  Public service announcements were being run on local television and radio stations to instruct people to report neighboring businesses that weren’t complying with the closure. Civil unrest and potential civil war was a subject not uncommon in any political conversation. The sea of serious issues was rising up in every direction around us. Everyone seemed to latch on to one or two ideologies they could emotionally attach to just to keep a footing in what they thought was right, moral and decent. 

Businesses everywhere suffered irreparable losses and in many cases closure. Our nations debt, unemployment levels, evictions and foreclosures catapulted off the charts.  

While the village was exploding in the rear view mirror behind us, the majority of the people I came in contact with were finding a new peace and happiness in a way they didn’t know they wanted. People begin to identify with where they wanted their place to be in this world and take actions to make that a reality. People ruminated about whether this was just mother earth forcing us into time out. Making us choose the only correct option… mindfulness over money.

When the universe takes a shift, either personally or globally, that change means reinvention in our lives. No matter how you approach the situation, either with intention or enmity, the universe will call you to make a choice. You can embrace the shift and look for opportunities to identify what you want to create in your life or resist the change and haul your way out of the quicksand of the moment through your own labor and toil. The sweat of thy brow method works, and for most people the unknown of just flowing into your next incarnation seems the more difficult road. When the unknown presents itself, it creates uncertainty and fear. We instinctively grab for the wheel of our ship, put our hands on the situation and in some way we feel we’ve made a choice. It’s always good to write your story, but know the outcome will be a mystery even to you. Decide what you want. Is it adventure and travel, friends, community or maybe just financial stability and the freedom that brings? Then write your story from the end. Live the story from the perspective of the experiences you need to create today to produce the feelings you want to look back on tomorrow. 

Regardless of what you choose, this chapter is being written. This is our chance to write what we want to remember. 

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. 

Napoleon Hill