Are we there yet?

Anyone who has taken a summer road trip with children will be familiar with these four dreaded words typically uttered as soon as you have pulled away from your driveway. Some of the reactions and opinions as we start to reopen (and in some case re-close) the economy seems to sound similar to this refrain. It would be helpful for people to remember that we are in a marathon not a sprint. And apart from the obvious differences between the two race types of length and speed, the other major difference is that you typically cannot see the finish line, let alone the whole course, when you start a marathon. That is one of our issues – we haven’t even defined what “there” means yet and as a result it is very difficult to gauge if we have reached or even how close we may be to the finish line.

In these difficult times we have seen many wonderful posts highlighting incredible acts of selflessness; the power of resilience (Madeline Albright’s piece in the New York Times- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/opinion/madeleine-albright-coronavirus.html) and the need to potentially build anti-fragility (Farnam Street blog post on Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book- https://fs.blog/2014/04/antifragile-a-definition/) to deal with the messy world we live in. I would like to recommend three additional maxims that I believe will make us stronger and more likely to be successful during this pandemic. 

• Pace yourself – as all good marathon runners know managing how you expend your energy is critical. A successful run requires that we do it in phases (https://www.sarakurth.com/stages-of-running-a-marathon/). We all jumped in with the fervor of a sprint in the emergency phase – that cannot continue forever. It was difficult to prioritize actions in the early stages, it is critical that we get better at doing this and ask ourselves the value of each of our actions as we move from one phase to the next. Realize that we will have some good and bad days but ensure that we do enough (and more) to thrive another day.
• Invest in becoming the best version of you – in the words of Oscar Wilde – ‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.' The body is an amazing machine and continuously sends signals that good runners know how to decode and act on. The mind plays a similar role, be open to new data and information about the pandemic. Listen, process and react with agility based on your strengths and limitations. It doesn’t help to put extra pressure on yourself – till you get the anti-fragility figured out! 
• Be selfish – we have seen many heroes during this pandemic – healthcare workers on the front line, essential workers across many industries – and we continue to celebrate them. However just as you are told during the safety demonstrations in planes (may seem like a distant memory for some) please put on your oxygen mask before assisting others. It is important for us to do whatever is required to make sure we have our oxygen masks on so that we can continue to support others. We have trained in our own way (some better than others) for this race and we need to look after ourselves so that we can continue to be contributing members to our family and society. 

I also believe following these maxims will not only make us more effective, it will also put us in a better position to help many others achieve similar results.

I wish you all the strength and stamina to not just survive this marathon but emerge victorious … don’t expend your energy asking if we are there yet - we will be there soon enough!