Making Good Decisions

As human beings, we like to think we are acting rationally and making good decisions.   As a life-coach and someone who has had several different careers over the course of my own life, I’m all for clarifying goals, taking a clear look at our current situation then setting out in some active manner. But I also believe that we never have adequate information to make truly informed decisions—especially about the most important things in our lives. Think of picking a life partner or accepting a new job or deciding how careful is careful enough in this time of COVID-19.

Over the past five days, health and civic authorities have continually and downwardly adjusted the number of people that are allowed to gather at one time. At first it was just no large concerts or sporting events. Then it was no gathering of over a hundred people. By Saturday, fifty was the limit. Then Sunday, twenty-five. Now, here in Massachusetts, restaurants are closed for anything but delivery or take-out and last night, I heard the new recommended maximum ‘safe’ number is ten.

We are in the middle of a dynamic situation and we are being called upon to continually adjust our behavior based on ever-changing and partial information. Despite its assertions to the contrary, the federal government has been woefully slow in providing access to the tests needed to determine the spread of the virus. The daily count of confirmed and presumptive cases of infection is only a small fraction of how much the virus has already spread.

So how do we decide how much contact is ‘safe’?  Four thoughts:

1) Follow the guidance of health and civic leaders to coordinate our activities with everyone around us. Only our collective action can mitigate and eventually manage the spread of this virus that may be both milder and more dangerous than we had imagined.

2) For the time being, error on the side of caution. Have less physical contact than really makes sense to you. We are at the beginning of a situation that is new to us all. Day by day, we have new information and everything is showing that we are dealing with something more serious and infectious than we had understood.

3) Remember that your actions and non-actions make a real difference. While it is easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed with the weirdness and the threat of these days, the choices we make, moment after moment and day after day have indelible power to help shape the future that we live into.

4) Connection is essential for the health of human beings. With many of our usual avenues of connection closed, we need to be even more conscious of fostering the connections that give us life. This begins with our connection to our selves – stay tuned to the roller coaster of thoughts and emotions and experiences that are yours today. Appreciate the people, plants and animals around you—each one you encounter is a whole universe. Finally allow yourself to remember the beauty and mystery of this swirling universe of people and microbes and stars and daffodils.

Nothing is ever separate.