The Great American Lockdown - The Opportunity of your Lifetime
The Great American Lockdown Begins
Schools and College campuses closed or on extended spring breaks. No more sports for a while… NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS suspended, March Madness, NASCAR and IndyCar canceled, Boston and other marathons around the world canceled or delayed until fall and now talk of the Olympics being canceled or delayed for a year or two. At home, endless talk about testing, hospital beds, and toilet paper. Newscasters talk endlessly about shortages, inconveniences, disruptions and of course, the ill and death counts. It looks like we are facing significant time away from our normal day to day activities, a time where our everyday lives face a massive shift and may never be the same again. It is one of those moments in life, where you can chose to be reactive or proactive.
This could be the most significant opportunity for the young and healthy of their lifetimes. The opportunity to make a difference in the rest of their lives. While there are risks for everyone with this virus, the experts agree that the Corona-virus-19 is most dangerous to the elderly and those with underlying conditions. So how about those who don’t fit into these risk groups? If you are young, healthy, follow the guidelines, your risks are low and even if you catch the virus, the effect can be minimal, although I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
If you are in the low-risk group, how are you going spend your time of social distancing during the great American lockdown? You could binge-watch The Walking Dead and the Bachelor, or maybe keep up with the latest happenings with Baby Yoda. You could play endless hours of Call of Duty or Words with Friends. Or even kill time on the “The 50 best websites to waste your time on” website. 99% of the population will waste all this free time while complaining of boredom. Boredom something I already hear from many and the lockdown is just beginning.
Harry Bemis in “Time Enough at Last”
“Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” — Jim Rohm
Imagine what could happen if just 1% of the population chose to use this time wise and dedicate themselves to making changes.
In 1959, the eighth episode of the Twilight Zone featured a hapless bank teller named Harry Bemis and all Harry wanted to do was to read but there was never enough time. Never enough time that was until atomic war took place while he was reading below ground in the bank vault. Seemingly, the only survivor, Harry soon realized that there was time enough at last to fulfill his dream of all the books he could read.
How about you? What is your dream that lingers unfulfilled for lack of time? What can you do in these few weeks to make those dreams realizable?
Some Ideas that creative to use to effect in this downtime:
1) Start a new Habit: Start a new diet or new exercise routine. An activity can become a habit in 14 day
2) Learn a new Skill: Everything needed is available on the internet and what isn’t, can often be ordered.
3) Plan a New Dream: Anything put down on paper is more likely to happen
4) Write a Book: First Sherlock Holmes novel was written in 3 weeks!
5) Write a Song: Or several, if so talented
6) Read Classic Literature: Many classics can be downloaded free
7) Listen to new Music: Explore that to which you would normally never listen
8) Learn a new Music Instruments: takes longer but you could make a good start
9) Start a Company: Business Plan and Legal Steps are easy enough online
10) Learn to be a Different Person: There is time to reflect and make those personal changes you need to make
The great American Revival or The Great American Waste
There is a choice to be made with this lock-down be a revival or a waste? Will we advance or simply waste the chance. Will we buy a lot of food and then let it go to waste? Will we waste our time on Netflix? With all that said, now imagine if just 1% of the population spent the lock-down time being busy with productive activities. That 1% could represent 500,000 person-years of work available to do something special.
We face a choice with this lockdown, Revival or Waste? Will we take this chance for a Great American Revival in knowledge, culture and humanity? Or will we let it go to waste as we often do. Waste our time streaming Netflix, stuck to the video games and our phones. True, it is essential to stay connected to what is happening around you but there are limits to what you need to know. The world isn’t changing that fast. If just 1% of the population would use this time, it would add up to close to a Million Man-years of time, more than enough to change history.
What will you be doing? If you need help with a plan, what for upcoming blogs on vision and goal settings which will set you on the right path.
