Pass the halfway mark of 2020, the world has seen an enormous gap between nations and their difference in quality of life. Some nations thrive while others remain behind. This makes one understand how significantly ordinary people like you and I are heavily at the mercy of bigger, more powerful individuals whose choices could either bring joy and peace, or wreck havoc.
The beginning of 2020 seemed to be promising. It was a huge number. It made us remember all those faux predictions of the world ending back in 2012 and made us realize how far we have come. For most people, 2020 felt like an immense and intense reset towards life goals and plans. To some individuals, the beginning of the year was paved for big changes. Surely, 2020 if anything, is full of changes so far.
We now walk out of our homes bringing another extra thing as part of our norm — face masks. A year ago, it would be very rare to find someone wearing a face mask in public. This year, it is the other way around.
The mundane things we normally do in our day to day lives have also shifted drastically. Going to the mall, buying groceries, dining out are situations we have now become wary of. Today, we not only think about the errands we need to accomplish, but we also think about the things we should do to protect our health.
Lockdown measures have forced all of us in a state of isolation and we understood its difference from solitude. We understood how important it is to take our breaks in life, but never be in complete and utter isolation. It made even the most introvert of us clamor for human connection and physical meetings.
Pass the halfway mark of 2020, we have seen how sudden and how intense the universe can throw a rock our way. We have seen how drastic a change could be and how greatly could it affect lives.
The world pandemic we currently face was beyond the control of anyone. People simply go through rough patches whether as individuals or as a whole. It so happened that we are going through this very rough patch as a world.
Because of this, it made it clear how small or big a person can be — all depending on how he or she chooses to rise to the situation.
We have seen some world leaders who rose tremendously as humane as possible. On the contrary, we have seen other leaders who fell behind not only in competence but in basic human decency.
When so much is at stake and millions of lives on the line, how would one powerful individual whose seated with authority choose?
The world pandemic has proven to not only affect physical lives, but also mental and emotional states. It has been depleting our energy and resources to the very brink.
Jobs have been lost, education has been compromised, food on the table has gradually decreased, mental states have slowly declined, anxieties have continuously elevated, suicides have grown in numbers —all of this because the minority of those bigger and more powerful than most chose something entirely different from what the world needs right now.
These things really make you understand how human connections are intertwined in more ways than any of us could imagine. We all live our lives and make our decisions at the expense of someone else. Therefore, how would we live and decide? That is up for our moral and ethical decision. We will not always get it right, but so long as we choose the moral high ground, then we could not really do much wrong.
But does this mean all of us ordinary human beings are simply small and insignificant? Definitely not. Small and ordinary human beings when put together can create an enormous difference.
As we face very uncertain times, all we can really do now is to continuously rise above the problems we face, speak up, and navigate our way around them. The challenge of doing so would always be dependent on how big or small you are as an individual, but no one is ever too small to make a difference in at least one person’s life. Therefore, how would the ordinary of us choose to help those who need far more than us?
Hope is fleeting. Hope decreases in moments of adversities and troubles. But the good thing about hope is that it comes from within us — even when all seems to be going for the wrong direction, hope is something we can always call upon us to help. It gives us at least the energy and the inspiration to live through the rough patches as we await the happy ending.