PLEASE DEFINE ESSENTIAL
Wednesday, Apr. 29, 2020
Essential services : the term we’ve often heard lately – on NEWS, in conversation. People allowed to work, are deemed an essential service, an essential business, not limited to food supply or medical services.
This has caused me to question, what is essential, and why am I uniquely qualified to provide it?
A reminder should be on everyone’s business card, at the ready, every time we need a reality check. To whom, for what, and in what ways, am I essential?
And the converse of that, what is essential to me?
Maybe we need to personally and society-wide, redefine the meaning of essential. Living in a free society means we get to choose what we do, what we try, what we invest ourselves, our sweat, and our money into – not based on someone else’s view of what is essential, but by our own sensibilities.
Have you ever answered the question, “If your house was burning down, and you could only rescue or retrieve one thing, what would it be?”
I think we’ve all played that game in our mind, or at a dinner party, thinking about photos, computer back-up drives, unique treasures. Aside from rescuing every living person or pet, what is so important that we would run back into a burning building to retrieve?
Hopefully, despite losing photos and mementos, who wants to risk being burned-alive amidst our past?
The future is outside, beyond the past. We will live it, we will define it – and refine it; this is essential.
In the end, we travel light – the stuff we need: experiences, memories, and life-lessons – not something we need pack. We carry them everywhere.
Reader feedback:
Hi Mark, In answer to your question this morning...I am sure you and your viewers have been following this, but just in case... I too liked the Michael video...watched the referenced ones just now...so interesting...with so many oppositional opinions...good to stretch my brain with the Erickson one...just not sure as most reporting now is not defining the virus as mild, rather the opposite. To know truth one must suspend all opinions: Zen saying https://youtu.be/o1zIgTwENPg , SF, Lethbridge, AB
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