Why People are so Divided on COVID-19, and What It Has to do With Your Personal Fulfillment
Like so many other issues in contemporary American life, the COVID-19 pandemic has become grounds for socio-political division. Regardless of what you make of the pandemic, most of us can look around at America’s response to COVID-19 and recognize how things might have gone better. In this article, I unpack one of the simplest reasons for our failure to form a unified front amidst the challenges of the coronavirus.
In doing so, I hope to shed light on one of the key challenges associated with establishing a career (and a life!) that we find personally meaningful and fulfilling:
the invisible nature of our inner compass
I love big snowstorms.
I love the look of thick white layers of snow covering trees, houses, and cars. I love how quiet it is during and after a big snow. As a long-time student-turned-teacher, I love days off school… the sudden gift of time that allows you to get creative in the kitchen, trudge down the sidewalk to visit a friend, or join a spontaneous snowball fight announced on social media.
I love all these things about snowstorms, but perhaps what I love most about a big snowstorm is what it does to our collective psyche.
Let me explain.
As soon as the flakes get larger than the eraser on a pencil, the things that were important to us just moments before begin to fall away. Suddenly, everyone is concerned about the safety of those traveling on the road. Important in-person meetings, practices, and rehearsals get pushed back. The swiftly piling crystals seem to cover over disagreements we were in the middle of, if only for a few moments.
It seems that, with the proverbial “common enemy” of the storm, we are reminded of our common humanity and powerlessness in the face of the forces of nature. Almost instantaneously, we get a new perspective on what is important…
a bit of that we’re-all-in-this-together feeling.
So why hasn’t the COVID-19 prompted this same social phenomenon?
There are so many possible answers to this question, and the comparison obviously has its limitations. But for the purpose of this article, I want to offer up one simple explanation:
The virus is invisible to the naked eye.
We can see snow, but we can’t see the coronavirus (well, at least not without fancy equipment). Because we don’t see it, there are some who don’t believe it exists (not unlike a disbelief in God because we can’t see Him/Her/Them/It).
On the other hand, there are frontline health workers who interact on a daily basis with patients who exhibit the now well-documented symptoms of COVID-19. Their observation of the pandemic is constant.
For those of us in the middle, we don’t all experience the pandemic in the same way at the same time. Perhaps we feel removed from all of it until someone we know gets sick. Or we’ve spent so much time at home that we’ve forgotten that we used to work in an office and that everyone at the grocery store is wearing a mask right now.
Aside from the invisibility of the coronavirus, there are two other factors that complicate the matter:
time and togetherness.
TIME: Snowstorms are immediate and finite, unlike the elusive endpoint of the pandemic. I live in Pennsylvania, and we have lots of salt trucks and snow plows that launch into action in the midst of any significant snow event. We can be sure that roads will be drivable again in a day or so. As a point of comparison, on the rarer occasions when the southern US gets hit hard with snow, it can linger for much longer, because municipalities lack the infrastructure PA has built up on account of dealing with loads of the white stuff on a more frequent basis. But even in the case of the South, we are talking about days rather than hours… not the grinding months of COVID.
We’ll come back to infrastructure in a moment.
TOGETHERNESS: As far as length of time is concerned, one need only recall high school US history lessons on the Victory Gardens and War Bonds of World War II as an example of sustained, unified efforts against a common enemy. Even members of pacifist religious groups chose to serve in the military, and for those who didn’t, the government worked to accommodate these conscientious objectors.
But of course, people weren’t forced into quarantine-induced hermitage during WWII. More on this later, too.
So our response to COVID-19 has been particularly challenging as a result of (at least) four factors:
1) invisibility, 2) duration, 3) separation, and 4) infrastructure.
So what does all of this have to do with your life- and career-fulfillment?
If you are a skeptic and made it this far, I might lose you here, which is fine. But if you believe in the coronavirus, the Divine, or other things you can’t see, you might as well try hanging in there with me.
Each of us has a unique calling in life
Lessons we were meant to learn and contributions we were born to make. Some people like to think of them as sacred agreements we made with the Universe prior to birth to which we gradually open our eyes throughout the course of our lives.
Your calling is entwined with your core values, as well as your individual inclinations, preferences, strengths, and gifts. And the challenges and struggles in your life are there for your growth, preparing you for the next stage of your life’s calling.
In other words…
who you arE
is exactly who you need to bE
to do exactly what you were born to do.
It follows that our fulfillment is closely tied with how true we are to that calling, fluctuating in correspondence with how much we are living into it or avoiding it.
If that clicks for you, then you might find value in these four lessons I see embedded in our experience of the COVID-19 pandemic:
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Following your calling in the face of skeptics is difficult, but it is essential to leading the life you were meant to live.
When it comes to the pandemic, we all have different levels of risk-tolerance. I’ve heard many stories from friends and family about being in social situations where they felt wearing a mask was the right thing to do, but no one else was. Its not that the rest of the crowd were COVID non-believers, but perhaps just skeptical about whether a mask was truly necessary. Very few people like to be the odd one out, so it can be easy to bypass our own instincts when confronted with opposition from our peers. Sometimes this can help keep us in balance, but sometimes it results in self-denial.
Our need for social acceptance is real. It is a hardwired psychological imperative that we depend upon for survival. Sometimes this can keep us in balance, but it can also lead to serious self-denial. It can be hard to do things others may not understand or disapprove of - like mask-wearing or practicing a spiritual devotion - and following your calling can make you appear socially off-center.
No one can see your inner compass, so there are people who won’t understand your external behavior when you are responding to an internal calling. Furthermore, others who have not made a habit of following their own intuition, the actions you take to do so might seem risky, scary, or unwise. To make things harder, those people may be your friends and family.
(SIDE NOTE: This article is not an endorsement of extremism or dangerous behavior - i.e. if the pandemic is causing you to feel like you need to take a shower every time you step foot outside your house, you might need to check your perspective and your facts; along those lines, part of discerning your calling is knowing when you’ve gone too far, or when you’re at risk of harming yourself or others.)
However, for those who have journeyed along the path of self-actualization, they will recognize what you are doing, and they will cheer you on. Find these people and make them a part of your life. They will serve as sources of strength during the times that you doubt yourself.
There is a beautiful irony here: Although those who are most in touch with their life’s purpose have most likely freed themselves, to some degree, from the need for social acceptance, it is these people - those who have stepped into their own personal greatness - whom we most admire and aspire to be like.
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Following your calling is a lifelong endeavor.
We don’t know how long the COVID-19 pandemic will last, but we do know that it will come to an end eventually. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been required to make frequent decisions about where we will go, who we will see, whether to wear a mask, etc. It has required us to commit and recommit to social distancing to keep our families and communities safe and healthy. To say it has required vigilance is an understatement.
It would be a lot easier to grow lax about it all.
In the same way, you will come to multiple crossroads in your own journey at which you may be tempted to following something other than your calling: money, recognition, leisure, etc. These aren’t bad things, but they won’t be satisfying if you are off-purpose.
Staying true to your calling requires frequent discernment and recommitment in the face of doubt, and that’s not always easy. This is where having others in your life - those who know what you are up to, and who will offer you unconditional support - can really be a saving grace.
Life is a marathon (cliché, I know), but it’s also important to remember that it’s not an all-or-nothing scenario. A marathon runner who finds they need to stop and stretch in order to finish, still finishes! Don’t beat yourself up if you think you’ve taken a detour or a break. Chances are, you needed it.
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Following your calling will bring times of separation from loved ones and familiar things.
It is heartbreaking to consider the lives lost as a result of COVID-19. Other than the death of a loved one, prolonged separation from those we care about - and the activities and places we enjoy - is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the pandemic.
But a close look at the great stories of our culture reveals that times of separation from the “tribe” are often times of personal growth and development. The hero’s experience of separation and solitude is a necessary preparation for the challenges they will face as a result of pursuing their destiny. Luke Skywalker on Dagobah, Moana at sea, Simba in the jungle, Jason Bourne’s amnesia… the list goes on.
In our present-day lives, this is the boarding “preparatory” school, the gap year, the freshman year at college, or the study abroad experience.
What is strange about the COVID-19 pandemic, is that many of us are experiencing solitude while at home, rather than away from home. Regardless, it is wise to believe that this situation is presenting us with lessons we will need to learn as we step into our post-COVID-19 world (THIS VIDEO is a great example of that awareness).
If you can stand in the knowledge that you will get through quarantine - and that you are, perhaps, becoming stronger, wiser, more compassionate, and more self-loving as a result - then you are also preparing yourself to follow in the directions you are called by Life.
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Following your calling can get easier with the development of the right infrastructure.
I already mentioned how infrastructure impacts a community's response to a snowstorm. We’ve also heard countless news stories about how the coronavirus has put pressure on our healthcare system, resulting in a shortage of personal protective equipment and hospital beds.
You can be sure that, behind the scenes, there are healthcare leaders asking, “How can we be better prepared for the next time this happens?”.
We get better with practice. And as we practice, we build infrastructure.
Infrastructure doesn’t have to be physical. It can be psychological, emotional, and spiritual as well. Each challenge you experience in life helps you to develop the emotional wherewithal to face the next, greater challenge. Every time you tune in to what your intuition is telling you, you become better skilled at noticing the nuances and coincidences associated with being in alignment with your calling.
No one is ever done with becoming who they were meant to be, but there are people who spend their lives resisting it.
Self-resistance is the opposite of self-fulfillment.
You can’t see your calling, but if you think about it with enough honesty and intention, you can probably get a sense of whether you are following it, or hiding from it - living into it, or running from it.
Take heart. Have courage. Find time when you can quiet your busy-public-self and listen to what the world is telling you. Find people in your life who will support you. You’ll quickly find...