Crises tend to bring out the best and worst in people. In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s easy to see the best of us: it’s the emergency room nurse who is, literally, risking her life to save the sickest and most vulnerable patients who have been stricken with this deadly disease; it’s the guy who runs the local grocery store, giving out free lunches to people in his neighborhood; it’s the young woman who goes shopping for an elderly friend who’s too afraid to leave the house.
Then there’s the worst of us: the hoarders who strip store shelves bare of toilet paper in quantities they can never use; the scammers who prey upon the sick and uninsured, offering dangerous cures and dubious advice; the price gougers selling $30 bottles of hand sanitizer, looking to make obscene profits off of people’s fears; the nonchalant youth, unwilling to give up spring break and congregating on crowded beaches, while ignoring the experts’ counsel to self-isolate; the politicians, looking to score cheap political points, demonizing the “other,” while minimizing the risks and subverting the truth.
And of course, there’s the rest of us. Mostly we’re in the middle – neither the best, nor the worst – just average human beings attempting to cope. We’re the small business owner, trying desperately to stay afloat and horrified at the prospect of having to lay off the people who depend on us for their livelihoods. We’re the father who’s been furloughed and doesn’t know exactly how all the bills will be paid, or when he might go back to work. We’re the mother who needs to stay home and educate her kids, while worrying about Grandma who she can’t go and visit for fear of spreading this insidious and invisible scourge. We’re the high school senior whose prom and graduation have been cancelled and whose foreseeable future is murky at best.
This is a trying time to be sure, with an outcome that is utterly unpredictable. The best we can do is to listen to the experts, practice social distancing, and try to find the best, not the worst, in ourselves and one another, for we are truly all in the same boat.
Meanwhile, here at Business View Magazine, we wish to extend our thanks to you for your ongoing support and your participation in our workaday lives. We hope that you will weather this bizarre and unprecedented dilemma, and we profess the utmost faith that we will come out stronger than ever on the other side. Stay well, dear reader, and remember to wash your hands.
