There are multiple pressing causes facing the world. We can’t escape the current reality Covid-19 imposes on us individually and collectively throughout the world. At some point we will adjust. Life will change. Dangers will exist. We’ll find new things to worry about.
Leaving aside the virus for the moment, three months ago there were other issues gathering our attention, causing angst, looking for solutions. Maybe it’s time to step back and examine a few. Consider where else we should be placing our attention and resources. Perhaps that will help us put the virus in better perspective. Perhaps not. We all have to make those decisions for ourselves in terms of how we perceive things.
Take the Opioid crisis. Has it gone away the last three months? Certainly not. It could be worse for all I know. Because of the virus, more people, from what I’ve read, are turning to alcohol, food and drugs to take their minds off our current environment. So, the Opioid crisis could be even worse. We should continue to focus on these types of mental health issues.
Race relations are back on the front burner. We all need to rise up, open ourselves to each other, ask, listen, challenge, support and learn.
How about plastic pollution? Has it been evaporating the past three months? Hardly. Plastic in smaller and smaller particles continues to insinuate itself all over the planet into every possible environment. We’re finding these microparticles everywhere. Progress occurs with newer technologies and where communities are overwhelmed with plastic trash, like seaside towns. But it’s not enough, and organizations like 4ocean and others are critical in coming up with long-term and viable solutions that reduce the source and cleanup the plastic soup before we’re all buried by a big mound of soft drink bottles and supermarket bags.
Then there’s the affordability of medicine. We all face these astronomical costs, particularly in the U.S. How do we make medical coverage more affordable, transparent and simple to understand? If you have some ideas, send them along. We’re all looking for these answers. Caps on malpractice awards certainly would help, but I like this amusing step a friend of mine suggests:
“I’d do a Three Stooges routine on the insurance industry, hospitals and medical professionals and knock their heads together with the coconut bonking sound until they figured out a way for everyone to make a reasonable profit and not gouge the patient.” Hmmmmm…..
We could raise other issues, from the costs of college education to global climate change (the biggest issue in the long term facing all of us) to education and income disparities that threaten civil discourse and a common shared future that we all can stand behind.
Humans are designed to problem-solve. We’re endowed with multiple abilities to see something, analyze a situation and figure out how to improve on it. We need to apply those talents intensely on multiple fronts.
We’re doing that now. Progress is moving astoundingly quickly on many fronts with the virus. It’s easier to get mired down in the negative statistics than it is to see human behavioral change that has occurred, along with the intense drive for a vaccine or techniques for prevention of transmission.
As the cliché goes, it often takes a crisis to get us moving. The virus pushes us. The death of George Floyd pushes us. We must continue pushing ourselves.
Leaving aside the virus for the moment, three months ago there were other issues gathering our attention, causing angst, looking for solutions. Maybe it’s time to step back and examine a few. Consider where else we should be placing our attention and resources. Perhaps that will help us put the virus in better perspective. Perhaps not. We all have to make those decisions for ourselves in terms of how we perceive things.
Take the Opioid crisis. Has it gone away the last three months? Certainly not. It could be worse for all I know. Because of the virus, more people, from what I’ve read, are turning to alcohol, food and drugs to take their minds off our current environment. So, the Opioid crisis could be even worse. We should continue to focus on these types of mental health issues.
Race relations are back on the front burner. We all need to rise up, open ourselves to each other, ask, listen, challenge, support and learn.
How about plastic pollution? Has it been evaporating the past three months? Hardly. Plastic in smaller and smaller particles continues to insinuate itself all over the planet into every possible environment. We’re finding these microparticles everywhere. Progress occurs with newer technologies and where communities are overwhelmed with plastic trash, like seaside towns. But it’s not enough, and organizations like 4ocean and others are critical in coming up with long-term and viable solutions that reduce the source and cleanup the plastic soup before we’re all buried by a big mound of soft drink bottles and supermarket bags.
Then there’s the affordability of medicine. We all face these astronomical costs, particularly in the U.S. How do we make medical coverage more affordable, transparent and simple to understand? If you have some ideas, send them along. We’re all looking for these answers. Caps on malpractice awards certainly would help, but I like this amusing step a friend of mine suggests:
“I’d do a Three Stooges routine on the insurance industry, hospitals and medical professionals and knock their heads together with the coconut bonking sound until they figured out a way for everyone to make a reasonable profit and not gouge the patient.” Hmmmmm…..
We could raise other issues, from the costs of college education to global climate change (the biggest issue in the long term facing all of us) to education and income disparities that threaten civil discourse and a common shared future that we all can stand behind.
Humans are designed to problem-solve. We’re endowed with multiple abilities to see something, analyze a situation and figure out how to improve on it. We need to apply those talents intensely on multiple fronts.
We’re doing that now. Progress is moving astoundingly quickly on many fronts with the virus. It’s easier to get mired down in the negative statistics than it is to see human behavioral change that has occurred, along with the intense drive for a vaccine or techniques for prevention of transmission.
As the cliché goes, it often takes a crisis to get us moving. The virus pushes us. The death of George Floyd pushes us. We must continue pushing ourselves.