Normally I write these posts on the fly, in real-time, but I have been inspired by so many creative thoughts that I am preparing this in advance, so please forgive me.
One morning this week I was sitting on the balcony with my roommate just after breakfast, as we tend to do every day while in isolation.
In case you weren’t aware I am in Colombia, South America pausing my global travels during the Covid-19 pandemic.
I am in Medellin, Colombia which is a city surrounded by the Andes mountains. It is a city of 2.4 million people in a country of almost 50 million people.
With the mountains in the background of my daily view, it is not uncommon to awaken in the morning with cloudy skies. At least the skies aren’t as polluted as before, the pandemic has caused a countrywide lockdown.
A lockdown, in this case, means exactly that. We are restricted to our homes, my apartment I share with another traveller in my case, and not leave unless a series of conditions exist. As we don’t have a pet to walk we are not allowed to get out daily, so going to the grocery store on our appointed day is the only relief we get.
On the morning in question, the clouds parted just in front of the mountains and a beam of sunshine shone down upon the ground with a brilliance that made it seem special and at that moment there just for me.
That leads me to think about the symbolism of light and seeing through the darkness, it could also have been influenced by the concepts of the light at the end of the tunnel or a beam of light from the heavens above amongst many other stories that are part of our human existence.
What struck me at that moment was rather simple in retrospect, globally we are in a very difficult time, for most if not all of us this is a first in our lifetime event, although I suspect it won't be our last that is another story for another time.
From this gloomy situation, we see rays of sunshine that create moments of hope for the human condition. Yes there are still many clouds all around us and we don’t know what they will bring or how the day will turn out to continue in the metaphor, but we have that ray of hope to hang onto as if our lives depended upon it, and for some, it is their truth.
The Glass is refillable
I am asked often how do I stay so positive in the face of such a gloomy situation? I am the Acceptance without Understanding TM gal after all. This positive outlook has been nurtured in me by myself and others throughout my life.
Some describe it as a glass-half-full kind of person, an optimist. The opposite, of course, being a pessimist who would see the glass as half empty. Neither felt they described my outlook on life correctly nor why I see the light when others see the cloud.
One day it hit me, from a meme I saw on the internet. The glass is both half full and half empty but that is not the point at all, the point that hit me was the glass is refillable.
If I am a pessimist and the glass is half empty the pessimism comes from the fear of emptying the glass with the assumption it is not refillable.
On the flip side, an optimist see’s the glass as half full meaning I have 50% of the capacity I am capable of carrying, give me more.
With the perspective of seeing that the glass is refillable, I meet both the optimists and pessimists' concerns, therefore what I see is hope!
Eureka, that is exactly what this moment brought me back to, hope!
If you think about Acceptance without Understanding TM, that is faith for some folks. Faith and hope are a pair of the same coin.
See if you agree, as defined and summarized in a google search;
“Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing or a belief not based on proof and Hope is an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation or desire. Faith says it is so now, and hope says in the future it could happen.”
So this virus is hard to accept but we find hope that a solution will be discovered because as humans we have been doing this for centuries.
You see the light regardless of why I saw it, comes from the sun, that fact is irrefutable. The fact the virus is here and real with real dire consequences for some, not all, I must accept. Hope allows me to continue living, thriving, putting effort into my existence here at this time as we have hope that from this we will emerge into the light of a new day. What sort of day that will be, well that’s another story.