COVID-19: It is fast spreading, invisible, silent and deadly. The sooner we realize the more chances we will survive simply by playing “hide and seek’. It is as simple as that. Yet sometimes difficult within our high-tech and liberal “progressed” lifestyle.
These are the times where the fundamentals spring to remind us of our inferiority within the natural world we live in. Respect nature, its anger and its appetite to decrease us in numbers. This is the nature of our nature.
The last 3 years and more it has been undoubtedly the era of Health & Wellbeing in sustainability. Yet the targets were somewhat in a higher level of health & wellbeing, many times directly related to the productivity of human resources in commercial buildings.
However, now it is the time where we all feel on the bottom of the triangle of Maslow hierarchy of needs. That of survival.
On every crisis we live and survive we should feel blessed since we strongly feel and value the very fundamentals. That is the gift of life. Something we should never take for granted and on hindsight we should be frequently reminded of.
This is the time we should follow the instructions of scientists and authorities, that is stay home for as long it will be necessary. We are equipped with so much technology around us that we can communicate, get tons of info, work, keep in touch with our loved ones and finally have more time to ponder and reconsider our values and priorities.
Be reminded. Darwin was clear about it. The species that survived where not the smartest nor the strongest, but the ones that were able to adapt to the changing environment.
Consequently, as with the economic and social crisis recently experienced, with this current crisis we have to respect nature and adopt by aligning our lives in order to survive. Do not grouse about. Simply let’s adopt, be optimistic, innovate, invent and value the life granted to us. Be the resourceful Odysseus without physically travelling for a while!
My sympathy and hopes are for all humanity, including all citizens, sustainability colleagues and loved friends in Lombardy, Italy, Spain and France so much battered.
Provided we discipline ourselves, according to the guidance given by scientists and authorities, I am optimistic that we will overcome this global crisis with the least possible losses.
Remember the cliché “What is not killing us makes us stronger and wiser”.
Pantelis Levantis,
President of Sustainable Building Council Greece