Covid Changed The World

“Covid changed the world”. I have heard that many times over. I was talking with a friend I met in Walmart the other day and she said the same thing. “Everyone is so mean and full of hate.”

She’s right. It seems that people tend to look for reasons to hate before giving love and kindness a chance. Instead of seeing strangers as potential friends, people look with a critical eye to find something wrong. And it seems to have started with Covid.

Nobody can actually say what it was exactly that caused this change. Some say people didn’t deal well with being locked up in their homes. Others say it had to do with facing the fear of death. It might be the overall feeling of change that happened during the initial year when Covid struck.

To be sure, some sense of freedom disappeared with the onset of Covid. Even after they lifted the heaviest restrictions, there were some things that were changed forever. The job market and economy were never the same. The vaccine debate separated friends and families.

Covid brought to the world what cancer brought to the families of those who survived it – a constant fear. With a cancer survivor, every instance of illness brings a fear of a new cancer diagnosis. Covid brought that fear to the world and every sniffle and cough is considered suspicious.

Anxious humans are cranky people. And I think that’s a lot of what we are dealing with in our world now. Covid put the world on edge. People have less financial stability which also puts people in bad moods.

And so, our society suffers from mean, hateful people. Everyone seems to have noticed it. But nobody realizes that the answer is easy. We each have to be the change we want to see in the world. If someone greets you with a frown, give them a smile. When someone is mean, do not return the same meanness.

Kindness starts with each of us. Many times it will not be rewarded back at that same moment. We may smile at a stranger and receive a frown in return. But who knows if that smile may linger on in their mind and turn their day around at some point.

We have to give up the tit-for-tat attitude that has spread throughout. When we return a frown for a frown, all we do is perpetuate that same unhappiness that we felt. But, if we return a smile for a frown, we take the first step in changing the world, even just a little.

Smile first. Refrain from responding back to unkindness with more unkindness. Stay silent if you must. Greet others as potential friends when you meet them.

People want the world we had back. But it can’t happen if we hold onto the anger and hatred that is permeating every corner of the world right now. And the only way to fight that blackness is with love.