Hard Questions

[Coronavirus – XVI]

This is the fourth week running that I have posted daily reflections on the Coronavirus.

Before turning from reflection to action—or, at least some suggestions of actions—I want to turn from reflections to questions.

A critical step to any change is concluding that the consequence (the pain!) of staying the same far outweighs the challenge (the pain!) of making necessary change. And behind that calculus is interrogating our current habits, practices, and thought patterns. How do we do that? Well, we ask hard questions of ourselves.

So, here’s to a week or two of hard questions.

People like us that are unwilling to continue in ways like this will ask, and do, the two following things: 1) Take note of our internal landscape (because our inner response is often an indicator of whether we’ve done the work or not), and 2) find and understand answers (using whatever means we have).

Warning: the answers to these questions will take some work. They aren’t on your news feed or on the front page of the NYT but are found in the quiet corners of the internet, in classic books, and in the wisdom of friends. I repeat: you will (most likely) not find them in your news feed.