What the Pandemic Has Shown Us About Life

The universe won’t have our backs unless we back ourselves.

If everything in the last resort is in the hands of God or of blind chance, what hope has humanity except in submission?

— Buddha

This year we bought a Lego Town Advent calendar for our son. Every morning he sprints to the kitchen table to open a new window for his surprise mini-Lego. Today it is an ambulance car. His excitement lies in not knowing what is about to be revealed.

Life is a lot like this Advent calendar. It reveals what is in store for us bit by bit. Though, unlike this calendar, life can also throw us unwelcome surprises.

This year has taken us all by surprise. One year ago, no one knew that a killer virus was about to sweep the globe and wreck the lives of millions. But, of course, the nasty surprise was simply a manifestation of many concurring conditions and causes.

Buddha teaches that all events arise from a chain of cause and effect. Epidemiologists had warned for years about the next pandemic before the arrival of Covid-19. People didn’t listen. Politicians didn’t prepare. And, still today some people won’t wear a mask.

As of today, close to 1.7 million people have died from it worldwide.

It is hard to comprehend the enormous loss and pain that has transpired over the past year.

I read a story about a 49-year-old woman who contracted Covid-19 and then pneumonia. In the hospital, she drifted in and out of consciousness and often hallucinated. But when she was awake, she watched her ward mates die. Their bodies were wrapped in plastic and lifted onto metal trolleys to be carried to the morgue by porters.

She attributed her survival to a male nurse who urged her to leave as soon as she could and she took his advice. Many patients who decided to stay longer in the hospital died from secondary infections. She wrote:

“I touched death and I’m very lucky to be alive. What I’m now looking forward to is appreciating nature. You realise material things don’t matter. When I get outside I want to breathe the air, look at birds, and enjoy the natural beauty of the world.”

Death can teach us instantly what life takes ages to do.

I’ve always been curious about people whose brush with death taught them something about life. They unanimously urge us to cherish love, family, friends, and nature. They point us to a curious phenomenon:

In the grip of death, people only long for their ordinary lives because the pursuit of the extraordinary ceases to matter.

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has made the poor poorer and the rich richer.

Back in April, the New York Post published a story about how Tesla laid off (without pay) hundreds of janitors and bus drivers, most of whom were already struggling to make ends meet. It stated:

“Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who on March 6 tweeted that ‘the coronavirus panic is dumb,’ has seen his net worth grow more than 10 percent during the course of the pandemic. He was worth more than $37 billion on Friday, according to Forbes.”

The lack of compassion exhibited by Musk and some other billionaires upsets me. It is not like they can’t afford to be a little more generous. As far as I’m concerned, being filthy rich in cash but pitifully poor in empathy makes for wasteful existence. That is no life.

My own brother took out a loan to help his 35 employees survive when his restaurant closed due to the lockdown. He lives in a developing country that has no government assistance for such occasions. He did the right thing.

So far, I’ve been lucky with Covid. My family and friends have been spared from its deadly claws. Still, it has changed me. It has heightened my sensitivity to time. I am no longer comfortable with sleepwalking through life and occupying my time with meaningless activities.

For one of my friends, it took the pandemic as well as separation from her husband to notice that she had been living for the next moment at the expense of the present. She now practices being right where she is without rushing to the next moment or the next thing on her to-do list.

I’ve also resolved to further simplify my life instead of adding more things to it. It is much harder to adopt healthy habits without first dropping unhealthy ones. A snake must shed its old skin before growing a new one. So, my New Year’s resolution will be a list of things of which to let go.

Like many others, I’m excited about the Covid vaccine, Joe Biden’s Presidency, and the possibility of healing and renewal.

Not all things are ordained by powers beyond us. The pandemic has shown us that the universe won’t have our backs unless we back ourselves. Once again, we have been urged to be more proactive and take responsibility for our actions as well as our inactions. Nasty surprises often come when we let ugly conditions of our lives fester out of control.

We don’t always know what is in store for us, but we can help our luck and increase our chances of good surprises from life. We still are co-creator of our own destiny no matter what life throws at us.

Life goes on with or without the pandemic.

Tomorrow morning my son will run to the kitchen table to open yet another window and I wonder what this window will bring.

Thank you for reading.