My husband, Chris Bailey, came up with this idea. His idea is that people get seduced into thinking only of “the current emgergency”. A person, family or even nation, can operate for a certain time on the adrenaline of worry about an emergency. We set aside other concerns and make this emergency our top priority. We live our lives on adrenaline. Our lives are not normal, but that is because of the emergency. We don’t eat or sleep properly, we don’t worry about the details of our lives, unless they are details about the emergency.
We can as people, families and even as a nation, continue this way for some time. But eventually, we can’t continue to live life on our nerves. The current emergency becomes daily life. Now the question is: do we live daily life as if it were an emergency? Do we eat badly, sleep less, not care about details of making our budgets work, not keeping our confidences private or allowing joy into our lives? Do we grimly live as if we are running through a very long emergency?
At some point, even in the most grim of circumstances, life becomes normal life again. We find joy in small things and we allow ourselves to rest. We stop living life on our nerves. This is natural and normal. We even begin to make small plans for a future without the current emergency in it. What will life look like without the current emergency? Will we be able to meet it with joy? That becomes our next question.
Everyone’s lives involve emergencies. Sometimes it is caring for the serious illness of a family member. Sometimes it is a crisis at work or at home. For nations, sometimes it is war or terrorism. But regardless, we cannot live our lives in emergency mode. We have to live our lives.
Tags: the current emergency