At the time there was little focus on a future pandemic or fuel price hikes and certainly no thoughts of war in Europe. There was just a renewed focus on mental health awareness and the importance of understanding that it is always ok not to be ok.
Spin forward a couple of years and we are in a totally different world that strikes fear into the hearts of many of us. Who would ever have thought that there would be a pandemic that would claim thousands of lives and threaten the physical and mental wellbeing of so many people? Also, will we ever forget the sight of families standing in the gardens of care homes to ‘visit’ precious parents or the impact on family life of young people being ‘home schooled’ and, above all, the silent streets as we made our way to do a ‘socially distanced’ shop?
With the lifting of restrictions, many began to plan holidays and the return to some kind of normal life. I remember writing at the time that there was a golden opportunity in all of this for us to rethink everything that was important to us and to change our focus. Just as I was sitting down to write this, I heard a commentator on the war in Ukraine making a point about the impossibility of a return to life as normal after such devastating experiences. He said, you could put a cat in a field and fire off rockets all around it, it may survive, but it would never be the same again. A dramatic analogy I know, but it sparked a reaction in me and I thought I’d pass it on.
This may all sound gloomy but the most important thing for me, in the midst of all the horrible events of the last few years, is that while there is still life there is the opportunity to learn and move forward. None of us want to pay everything we earn on heating our homes and no one should be forced to ‘heat or eat’ which is a phrase we hear every day at the moment. Climate activists have been telling us for as long as I can remember that the earth is in crisis. Maybe it will take the price hikes that face us all for us to rethink how we live, how we heat our homes, do our laundry or travel around.
Life sends us lessons and experiences to learn from every day and it occurs to me that we always have a choice about what we do. It’s human nature to want to wrap ourselves up in the same routines that we have always known but, wouldn’t this be the ideal time to begin to consider a different way to live. Who knows, forced change may just be what we needed to re-evaluate our lives and focus on what is really important to us.
No one could underestimate the impact of the situation in Ukraine and I know there has been a huge effort to gather supplies and open up our hearts and, in some cases, our homes which brings me back to the beginning of this piece. The impact of human kindness cannot be underestimated and it was there all along. Wouldn’t it be great if we all remembered that and spared a thought for each other even when there is no big crisis. A kinder world sounds like a great place to live.
Don’t Agonise, Orrganise!