As humans, we’ve evolved over thousands of years to primarily do one thing: survive. To pass on our genetics. To continue the human race, whatever that is. To hopefully find a respectable mate and reproduce another generation and another and another. And we’ve done a pretty good job so far… I mean, we’re here. We’ve somehow made it this far.
For thousands of years, (many believe nearly 200,000 years), humans have been able to perceive threats, adapt to those threats, and train our children to do likewise. Sometimes those lessons taking root in our psyche, sometimes those lessons resulting in evolutions of our bodies and brains.

Somewhere in the last 10,000 years, we got this “survival” thing down enough to begin focusing on not only surviving, but thriving. We began farming and trying to produce predictable food sources, developing medicine and care to keep our bodies in good health, extending the lifespan, and checking off the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, developing religions and ways of expanding our minds beyond simply surviving.

Physiological needs: air, water, food, shelter, clothing…
Safety needs: security, employment, physical health…

And began focusing on the higher levels of love and belonging, esteem, freedom, and eventually self-actualization… to try to be the best versions of ourselves possible.

Now I’m not ignorant to the fact that there are billions of people on earth still struggling with those base physiological needs—we haven’t evolved past having the poor amongst us… But the people that I’m surrounded by, and perhaps the friends and family you’re surrounded by tend to have food in pantry, clothes in the closet... but I recognize it’s even dangerous to assume that.

My point here is that every once in a while, we’re confronted with a curveball, of coronavirus proportions. We get so “used to” stability and relative predictability that when something like this happens, we’re confronted with the naked truth that, “Yes, in fact we are these little, opinionated monkey people, on a rock covered in soil and ocean, spinning 1000 mph on our axis, while traveling 67,000 mph through empty space…”

For those that feel high and mighty and important, we need that truth to knock us down a peg. For those of us that already have some anxiety baked into our DNA, we don’t need to be reminded of those facts AT ALL.

But it’s true. And I can’t shake the feeling that we’re here to do something. Something beyond survive. Surviving can’t be the end goal of what’s going on here. There’s way too much soul and spirit and love and unexplainable connections between people for this whole thing to just be… this.

So what do we do when new threats show up? First, we deny it. Then we post memes about it. Then SNL does skits about it. Then someone we know tests positive for it. Then we panic. Then we flood Costco and buy all the toilet paper even though the virus doesn’t make us poop. Then we don’t sleep. Then we get out of bed and see that some random guy from Boston posted a video on Facebook and for some reason we’re still watching it.

This virus is a serious thing. Maybe you’re not in the highest risk demographic, or you’re in an area that hasn’t been hit by it yet, but this is just as much a test for our collective humanity as it is an imminent threat. This likely won’t wipe us out, thank God.

But how we respond to moments like this expose so much of our interior lives. It illuminates our priorities, and our motives, doesn’t it?

I’ve spoken to friends that are devastated by events being cancelled—not because they’re in the event industry, but because they love their March Madness… and yes, that’s a thing. SXSW, NHL, college graduations… These are real things with people’s careers and education and feelings of fulfillment all tangled together.

But it’s not more important than our collective good. If I have to cancel a vacation, or forego a favorite restaurant, or stay home for a few weeks to slow this thing down and minimize the risk for those most vulnerable, you better believe this will expose my true motives.

Coronavirus hits the elderly the hardest. Those that are 80 years and older have a 15% mortality rate. 50 years and under, it’s less than 0.5%

Maybe this thing isn’t posing you a great threat, but it’s dangerous for millions and millions of people, and they come before our preferences. Don’t they? Shouldn’t they?

This is what I mean by these things exposing what’s going on inside of us. If something of this proportion can’t slow us down in our tracks and allow us to put other’s well-being before ourselves, we have a much worse virus infecting us.

We’ve been inundated by the news and media, telling our subconsciouses that WE ARE NOT SAFE and inducing panic in our communities. And we’re seeing yet another failure from our country’s leadership, to act quickly and strategically… but this collective anxiety isn’t going to serve us much beyond convincing us to stay home.

If a little bit of anxiety convinces you to take this thing seriously, good. But beyond that, it’s not going to serve us well. It doesn’t help. It’s not going to help us recover from this thing, that’s for sure.

Humanity has endured hundreds of collective curveballs over the years, and we’re still here. We’re smarter, more resilient, and more connected across the globe than ever before. These things have the ability—the potential—to produce good in our communities, if we allow it to.

When my 7 year old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 3 years ago—an auto-immune disease that she could never have avoided—we couldn’t see any silver lining. It was all heartache and fear, needles and medical devices and alarms going off in the middle of the night.

But if I could introduce you to this girl… and you could see how resilient and joyful and brave she is? To see how healthy her decision-making around food is? To see her meeting younger kids that are just diagnosed and reassuring their panicking families that everything is going to be ok?

You might even say—it’s worth it. I wouldn’t wish the disease on anyone, but with Lily so far? It’s worth it.

And when it hasn’t felt worth it, we’ve made it feel worth it.

My word for you today, in the midst of unpredictability and a collective anxiety we’re sharing, is this: Make it worth it.

Take this massive disruption to our lives, acknowledge the weight of it, and then find a lightness within it. “Yes, this thing sucks. No one wants it. But we’re still here. And we have all this time on our hands. What could we do with these weeks ahead of us of uninterrupted time?”

Friends, we get to spend these days so that we’re a better humanity on the other side.

You could take these weeks of quarantine and isolation to begin chasing a dream you’ve complained you never have time for.

You could take this time to begin brainstorming that business you’ve always wanted to start.

You could take this time to start eating healthy and tracking everything you eat and finding workouts on YouTube that you can do in your living room.

You can take this time to setup FaceTime dates with people you love and spend hours and hours in conversation with people you’ve drifted apart from.

We complain about the pace of life, and so maybe the universe slows down the pace of life for a minute… just to see how we respond.

If you’ve ever been running on a treadmill and you turn it off quickly, it’s disorienting. You’re used to the pace you were running and you almost run into the front of it.

That’s what’s happening here. We’ve been running 1000 mph, and for some reason, we’re being forced to slow down. This doesn’t have to be viewed as an altogether bad thing.

Maybe it’s time to finish that book you’re been reading (or writing). Maybe it’s time to rekindle your relationship with your kids. Maybe it’s time to get sober.

The goal of life isn’t to run as fast as we can and then just burst into dust at the end. Maybe this thing can open our eyes to the wonder around us. Yes, the fragility of life, but also the resilience of life. We’re still here.

You have a choice on how to view this thing, and it is a choice. You can spend your time assembling all the negative things and setting up a shrine to worship those losses and frustrations over the next few weeks, or you can take a moment to breathe, and reflect on how you’ve been spending your time.

Is how you’ve been living the last 6 months how you want to be living? Are you in a season of life that you love and you want to preserve that and stay right there, or is some of your anxiety around this virus rooted in the fact that you don’t feel like you’ve lived enough life for this to be the end?

Friends, I want to end this little video with a blessing to speak over you…

May this pandemic wake us up. May our eyes be opened to the fragility of life, to the brevity of life—but also to the opportunity that life gives us.

May you live your life in an eccentric way—in an “others-centered” way. May you put the well-being of others before the conveniences and preferences of yourself.

May you be inspired to use this time to actually slow down, and take inventory of your life. Is how you’ve been living how you want to be living? Or is there some beautiful, disruptive change that might come out of this scare?

May our spirits grow stronger, and closer together, even in this time of relative isolation. And may our hope for what our collective future might look like take root in a way that no virus can threaten.

Friends, I love you.

I care for you. Let’s care for one another.

Make it a good day.