My mind is good enough to know that not everything different is a danger. What’s more - I can resolve differences easily and continue to grow - even in strange times.
And so can you!
At the beginning of the pandemic, I called a friend in the same business. Both of our calendars had been wiped out. Being stuck at home presents a problem to public speakers. And yet, as we say in Vegas: The show must go on!
“Are you doing many sessions for free?” He asked.
“Yes. And many for pay, too,” I said. “Are you teaching more online?”
“Entirely,” he said. “And writing more than ever. Still doing your photography?”
“A little each day,” said I. “And re-discovering cool spots in my neighborhood.” He laughed.
“We’re going to be okay, then, aren’t we?” I wondered out loud.
“Of course,” he said, “And even better than before."
When I think of this conversation, I remember the keyword we kept saying to each other:
AND!
How wonderful that we’ve been given the power to handle wild and different things! To combine and create opportunities out of differences. To learn as we grow that not everything that’s challenging is there to “oppose” us. The sea and the shore. The night and the day. The left and the right. The most meaningful journey navigates life's familiar and strange. And discovers, as my friend said, we can do it -
And still be okay.
That's a comfort these days. Especially when so much of our differences have been turned into supposedly dire opposites. Some things might need to be A or B, zero or one, on or off. But when it comes to the best of life, we can learn NOT to see everything in polar contrast - with or against, winner or loser, shared or canceled.
So we don't turn the world into a gigantic syntax error!
In the last few months, I’ve learned it’s okay to be home AND miss travel. It’s fine to Zoom and still be exhausted by the little screens. It's possible to teach online and write a friend by hand. It's easy to be kind and disagree online. It's fine to scroll by the lines between like and dislike. Because I’m not a machine - and ultimately -
It's just you AND me!
It’s difficult at first, sometimes uncomfortably uncertain.
But like a speaker who once thought: All the world is a stage!
You’ll turn the new into great potential.
And find not everything that’s different has come to hurt you.
Then rediscover the soon day -
When we'll be more than okay!