What Surviving "Tha Rona" Can Teach Us!

Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.    ~Simon Sinek

That “Rona” is wrecking lives across the globe. All of us know people who have endured economic hardships due to the virus. This adversity presents us with an opportunity to challenge some of our previously held beliefs about money and wealth accumulation. There are people learning the hard way that income and wealth are different.

Wealth is an abundance of assets, property and money. We work for income, but wealth works for those who have it. A lot of responsible and well educated people have found themselves on the outside looking in. Many of them were already drowning in a pool of debt tied to their education and lifestyle choices. Having a steady income allowed them to avoid the economic reality of their situation. There are people coming to grips with the fact that they weren’t rich or even securely middle class.

The ideological trappings that lead to "economic Darwinism" are steeped in superiority complex. There are people for whom having a comfortable life isn't enough; they need to chase the Joneses or become them. 

There's nothing wrong with wanting more, but when this mentality becomes pathological and causes people to see economic hardships or poverty as moral failings it becomes toxic. 

My hope is that once Covid-19 is behind us we won't lose sight of the shared economic anxiety we felt. I know this is myopic, but maybe we can end the selfish “I got mine so forget everyone else” mentality. Maybe we can become more sympathetic to the plight of others.

We all know people who are working to the bone, yet barely getting by. Inflation and stagnant wages have doomed a majority of our country to a perpetual race against the bills due on the 1st and 15th. Yes, there are people who make bad decisions that add to their financial struggles, but that subset doesn't represent the larger group of working class people. 

If the Corona virus forced you to restructure your life to survive an emergency, why can't you use that same energy to pursue work, a career or goals that fulfill you? 

There are people who will lose everything and have to start over; there are people who will be forced to change careers; some will spend years trying to recover, but there will be people who thrive because of what they've learned about themselves. All of the death and pain caused by this virus will be in vain if we don't challenge ourselves to look critically at the way we were before and during this crisis.