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We’re going on to the third year of the COVID pandemic, Quebec has started a new wave of infections, Ontario’s waste water analysis is also indicating an imminent surge, and there are still people who do not seem to understand the seriousness of the situation. 

There is a lot emotion that goes into a person’s world view. The main weapon we have at our disposal in controlling those emotions is knowledge and understanding. We have the power of reasoning available to us and the intellect, for the most part, to understand the concepts of cause and effect, as well as the ability to reason out that freedom and rights come with significant responsibility.

My personal belief is that government mandates are never going to be effective unless there is a zero tolerance approach to enforcement. We can argue all we want about whether or not a mandated measure is effective but the argument has absolutely no merit unless the mandated measures are implemented completely and then the resulting data proves them effective or ineffective. If we are not following the mandates, there is no way to prove, one way or another, the validity of the strategy. Unfortunately for the minority who absolutely refuse to comply with any mandate unless they are not personally inconvenienced by it, they can keep fueling this pandemic indefinitely and continue to argue that the mandates are not effective despite the fact that it is their personal actions that are guaranteeing the failure of any mandate.

We will never be at the point where we can rely upon everyone to pull together in a unified, logical strategy. To be clear, when I say logical, I am talking about strategies based upon science and common sense, not strategies based upon emotions. Politics, personal agendas, and illogical paradigms will continue to divide us and continue to be used to promote personal benefit over what is best for our community and society as a whole.

No leadership or strategy is going to benefit everyone equally. Compromise is the only way we can progress together. Unfortunately for the privileged few, compromise tends not to be in their vocabulary.

We are letting politicians decide medical strategies. We are ignoring healthcare professionals and doing our own “research” on the internet. This is why we have entered the third year of a global pandemic with no end in sight.

“Make sure your worst enemy is not living between your own two ears...”  ― Nitya Prakash (b. 1988)

Life

I have three direct family members currently isolating after testing positive for COVID. It is frustrating that after two years of us sacrificing and being careful, we end up with COVID in our family at this late stage of the pandemic. All of this is happening because my daughter’s boss decided to go to work anyway despite testing positive for COVID. After my daughter was unknowingly exposed for two and half days, she was finally informed that she was working side by side with someone infected. Despite leaving work and immediately isolating, she tested positive two days later. In the meantime she had already unknowingly infected her sibling and her grandfather.

When I look at Alberta’s COVID stats, we currently have over 12,000 people infected with the virus per 100,000 citizens. That means 12% of Albertans currently have COVID. That number does not include my three family members and everyone else who is quietly battling COVID at home. Nor does that number include the people who know they have COVID and are actively infecting everyone around them because they refuse to isolate themselves. I suspect the reported cases of COVID in this province only represents a fraction of the actual current cases.

With infection numbers like that and the mask mandate rescinded, there is little chance of avoiding COVID.

Know Thyself

Knowing ourselves is no easy task. We spend an inordinate amount of time distracting ourselves from the reality of our situations. We work hard to suppress facing our true realities so intently that we make it impossible to reflect before we react.

Can we change who we are? Not likely. Who we are has been defined by nature and nurture. That is a lot of inertia to overcome.

The thing we can change is the way that we deal with who we are. Before we can begin to change the way that we deal with who we are, we must first know who we are.

“Know yourself to improve yourself” - Auguste Comte (1798 - 1857)

The Dickens Process

I met with one of my mentors, Tom Callos, a couple of weeks ago and he introduced me to the ‘Dickens Process’ that he was introduced to by Tony Robbins.

The Dickens Process exercise drives its name from the Charles Dickens novel "A Christmas Carol" in which Scrooge is visited by ghosts showing him his past, present, and future. By following this strategy of analyzing your limiting beliefs across each tense (past, present, and future), we can see what the actual cost of our beliefs is by looking at each belief in detail to answer the following questions:

• What has each belief cost me and the people I care about in the past?

• What has each belief cost me and the people I care about in the present?

• What will each belief cost me and the people I care about in the future?

When we ask ourselves those three questions, it is important to answer completely by hearing the answer, seeing the answer, and feeling the answer. We must illicit not only a logical response, but an emotional one as well.

By dwelling upon the consequences of our limiting beliefs, we begin laying the foundation required to create new beliefs to replace them. Sometimes it is as simple as reframing the narratives of our beliefs so they are no longer limiting our growth.

“One of my top three limiting beliefs was ‘I’m not hardwired for happiness,’ which I replaced with ‘happiness is my natural state.’” — Tim Ferris’s (b. 1977)