Living with Compassion in the Age of COVID-19

How one small act of kindness might circle back around to save your life, or that of a loved one

In this age of chaos, it is essential that we retain our sense of compassion. Most of the world has now had a little time to deal with the emotional melt-down we’ve collectively experienced while trying to deal with the extraordinarily surreal situation we are immersed in. We’ve had to get our heads around it. But, now reality is setting in.

My gardener looked at me with a bit of panic in his eyes, telling me how he was having such a hard time finding food.

Most of us have probably had the chance to react to the situation by stocking up (a little, or a lot) on things we might need, which might (or might not) soon be in short supply. I know that I, for one, did get a little panicky and immediately procured three months worth of cat food, sand and treats, as well as bird food and quite a good stash of canned and dried supplies.

But now that the new paradigm is setting in, it is becoming incredibly clear to me how different my ability to deal with the situation is than it is for other demographic groups.

My gardener looked at me with a bit of panic in his eyes, telling me how he was having such a hard time finding food. He and his wife, who works at Taco Bell, and their two sons live payday to payday. They did not have the funds to rush out and scour the shelves of the grocery store for food they could stash away. They are just looking for food for today, without the luxury of thinking too hard about tomorrow. He also had no hand sanitizer and was almost out of hand soap. Of course we gave him money, food, hand sanitizer and soap.

I also noticed that my postman was not wearing gloves, which seemed like a dangerous thing, not only for him, but for everybody’s mail he is in contact with. So I gave him part of the box of one hundred gloves I had ordered. It makes so much more sense for him, who is moving through the world right now, to have them, than for me, who is hardly going out.

And I have decided the same thing about that box of face masks that I ordered. I am going to send them somewhere where they can be used by medical personnel, who are facing a huge shortage of protective gear. We need those medical people to be healthy and able to continuing aiding the ill.

My mother lives in a nursing home. They have been on “lock down” for a couple of weeks already. No visitors are allowed, unless someone is actively dying. All residents have their temperatures checked twice daily. And staff are examined every morning for any signs of illness. Today, they started doing daily personal calls to close family members of all the residents, just to keep us informed.

I feel like I would much rather that the doctor, who might one day care for my mother, have those face masks, than to know they were sitting in my cupboard.

We just transitioned our law office to a “remote set-up” so that all of the employees could work at home. We felt like it was the responsible thing to do. It will not be simple or without cost, but it lets all of our employees remain employed. And it allows my husband to continue to help his clients, many of whom are utterly panicked right now.

Many of his clients own businesses, and are trying to figure out what to do. The business world is gripped by a touch of pandemonium. But a new paradigm is quickly taking shape, and it will likely retain that shape for quite a while.

In order to survive, we all need to adapt creatively. For example, the yoga studio where I teach has moved all of their classes online. They have offered to all of the teachers to come in to the studio and teach “filmed” classes, with no students present, in lieu of their live classes. It’s not a perfect situation, but it seems like a very good alternative.

And a lot of restaurants have started delivering food to customers. I called my beloved Roma d’Italia this morning to encourage them to offer this. I love that little family-owned business, which has been operating for forty years, and I wanted them to know that we would support them if they offered this service.

One thing is for sure though. The only way that these steps are going to work is if everybody respects the situation and behaves appropriately with social isolation guidelines.

Many businesses, from restaurants to yoga studios to general offices are going to have huge losses from making these changes — we all need to respect that sacrifice, and try to mitigate this situation by staying home so that the virus dies out.

For now, my husband and I are homebound, and are enjoying extra snuggles with our kitty babies. While we were doing the dishes together the other night, he turned to me and said, “If there’s anyone I’d love to be stuck with in the middle of an apocalypse, it’s you.”

The longer the public delays the process of isolation, the longer it will be before businesses can open back up.

And the more we support businesses attempting to adapt to this new environment, the more likely it is that they will survive.

I have to say that I am so impressed with the way that Amazon is handling this time of panicked online purchasing. They have limited people’s ability to buy too many of one product, in order to assure that there will be enough of everything to go around. And if you keep your eyes open, you’ll see that they continue to offer hard-to-find items like dried beans and canned goods and toilet paper. I was actually able to purchase kleenex this morning. And I also saw several “off” brands of toilet paper, like those with wording on them, available this morning. And they announced today that they plan to hire 100,000 people right now, and are hopeful that many of them will come from the service industry.

I also just have to say how appreciative I am right now for all of the drivers delivering everyone’s online orders right now. Those UPS and FedEx trucks are lifelines to society.

For now, my husband and I are homebound, and are enjoying extra snuggles with our kitty babies. While we were doing the dishes together the other night, he turned to me and said, “If there’s anyone I’d love to be stuck with in the middle of an apocalypse, it’s you.”

And, it’s true. Being able to have so much time with the ones we love the most is the side benefit of this situation. Hopefully, we will all have newfound moments to commune with nature and with our loved ones.

It’s an interesting time. But we will get through this. It’s a transitional period to a new age and way of business.

But, more importantly, it is time to turn our attention to others who are in a more precarious place than us. It is a time for compassion. A little compassion goes a long ways right now.

This has to be a community effort. If we all come together, we can, literally, change the world. If you have extra supplies, think about your gardener or your housecleaner or the postman, who might not have hand sanitizer or soap, or the funds to stock up on food. Think about who really needs the medical masks and gloves the most. Think about the grandparents, and also the grand babies, and the world in which they will live. It’s quite possible that we might all emerge from this time as better people, with a newly-found understanding of how interconnected we all are.

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies). Erika is also an editor for Dharma Talk.

Article and photos ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.