Crisis can help you discover true self

It is a strange time. We in a place we have never known. Most of us have no clue why we are here, to begin with. While conspiracy theories abound, we are all just doing our best to sail through. Through? Yes. We are however even less clear about how long the sail will be or if the shore is somewhere in the horizon. No one has seen sight land.

There never has been as good an opportunity as this, to get us all reflecting on what life really means. Thousands of people are no longer with us in a matter of a four – five weeks. We could have been any of them.

Now that we are not, well… if you’re reading this, you’re still here. Do you know why you’re still here? Why do you get to live while others’ lives are cut short? Why do you get the privilege of yet another breathe? Another sunrise or snowfall, whichever part of the world you are in?

What are you doing here? Who are you? No, “l am head of New Affiliate Partnerships in New Market Territories” is certainly not the right answer. It may be your title just like your name is. Those are words that can change at any time. We embrace them so tightly that they begin to define us when it really should be the other way round.

It is at this time when most of us a more or less stripped of our titles, comfortable offices and the trappings that they come with. This is the time when we are forced to come face-to-face that we have allowed ourselves to be defined by systems that we have had no say in.

We have been programmed to obediently go to work like clockwork. While there, we are programmed to conform to what others expect of us.

Further, we are programmed to sit still.

We are programmed to conduct ourselves in the prescribed way and strictly abide by the given set of rules – corporate culture, they call it.

And then suddenly, we are sent home to be ourselves. The problem is, most of us have long forgotten who that might be. “Ourselves”?

Hmmm… “ourselves” who don’t have to be up by specific times and be somewhere with others everyday like clockwork? Who is that person?

“Ourselves” who have to be home in our own company all day?

Ourselves who have to be at home all day with significant others, children and the family car?

“Ourselves” whose important roles and titles no longer matter because the priority is for all of us to just get out of this alive no matter what our titles.

It’s a strange time, I mentioned earlier. A time for deep introspection into who we are, what we stand for, what we are here to do, and why that is so important that we have been spared death.

It’s a time to allow ourselves to stop fitting into the pigeon hole created for us by others, and start to grow into the “ourselves” that we are meant to be, to fulfill the reason why we still draw breathe and breathe leaning into that for as long as we all shall live.

Stay safe, my fellow brothers and sisters. May We all take this time to grow into our true selves.