PhotoCredit: Totoro
I was on a zoom call last Friday for my friend’s birthday. Apparently, this is what we do now. It was such a boost to see a collective of incredible women gathered digitally. There is no way we would have been able to coordinate this PreIsolation. IRL or digital. I drank a bottle of wine that night. I’m impressed my girlfriend could be such a bad influence from a distance. I am more impressed, quite frankly, I could drink a whole bottle of wine. Not so much the next morning...
Most of my zoom calls have been for work. I have been in “we got this” mode. No time for exhaustion. We have to make our cash work. We have to trim our overheads. Rethink revenues. Ask ourselves “what are the business models of the future? When will small businesses open? When will the US start flying again?”
I haven’t had time to think about what I was missing. As the “onwards oriented” person that I am, I hadn’t stopped to think about it.
Hugs seems to be the top-ranked collectively missed thing. Then uber-eats (for my friends in Level 4 lockdown). Dinner parties and drinks are next. Travel is the secret thing that no one wants to talk about. It’s pretty clear we will have everything else before travel.
No one seems to miss the daily commute. No one is going to miss being at home with their kids all day.
What I am missing is inspiration. Not that I am feeling uninspired. There just doesn’t seem to be as much space for inspiration. Innovation yes, we are working hard to think about what this new reality means to us, to our lives and to our businesses. But inspiration feels a little lost in the equation. I worry we have stopped dreaming.
It is understandable. There is little room for imagination and creativity when you are homeschooling your kids; running an empire; keeping up with your Netflix binging; and participating in the baking-obsession that has taken over us all.
We are tired. This is boring now. We know why we are doing it - we know it’s important - but we all want to tap-out of this reality show we have all unwittingly signed ourselves up for. Or alternate-reality show!
I get it but I want more. And I want you to want more. So I have a challenge for you. A dare. Give yourself space to dream a little of what your future could look like. To think of something really big. Possibly a bit crazy. Something really different that you are almost scared to say out loud.
Yes a lot of stuff isn’t working but, how could we find a way for those things to work? How could home schooling work? How could separation make us closer? How can we make the regeneration of our environment permanent?
We will be through this in no time. It just feels like an eternity right now. We have a unique opportunity to reimagine what our future might look like. It’s precious. It’s a gift. And it has an expiry date.
Let your imagination come out and play for a while. It’s a quarantine-approved activity.