We are living in an unusual and challenging time, a time where an invisible enemy, the COVID-19 coronavirus has stopped the world in its tracks. Entire countries are currently in lock-down, and whole populations are in confinement at home.
Overnight the world has changed, and we are all reminded how fragile, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous spaceship earth truly is. At the same time, this crisis is also showing another side. It is revealing that in the face of adversity, and when it really matters how resourceful and adaptable we all can be.
Just think about it and ask yourself how you would have reacted, let’s say six months ago, when someone had told you the hypothetical scenario that you had to stay home for a month, were only to leave the house to get food, and couldn’t have physical contact with your family. What would you have said in that moment? Impossible…, but here you are together with millions of others around the globe living that scenario.
It always seems impossible until it’s done.
Nelson Mandela
Now that we have accepted a new temporary normal, we must, in this rapidly evolving situation, use our time wisely and look ahead.
We need to consciously look to the future and start aligning our efforts from what we want that future to look like. This global pandemic has, and is shaking the foundations of our lives, and will do so for some time to come. So we better start thinking about how to go forward from here and thrive.
However, the challenges that we are experiencing today cannot be solved by a reset to business-as-usual. Many people may long for a return to a normal-as-was-condition because it is familiar, but that in the long-term would be the biggest and maybe last mistake we’ll ever make.
No, we need new kind of reset, a reaset (ɹiːˈsɛt), a return to ease (new-normal) from a future perspective and not a reset to and from a forlorn condition. We need to unlock our unique human potential and project it into a meaningful future, a future we want and feel at ease in.
At the same time, we need to learn ways of aligning our mind, body and actions to that future and evolve on purpose. Instead of living according to the song “Que Sera Sera…”, we have to become more engaged with our future instead of letting it happen to us. We have surprisingly far more influence over our future when we start exploring our future. To reaset ourselves with a future we want, will make us much more adaptable in body, mind and spirit which is needed to with ease navigate the challenges ahead and thrive.
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
So let’s look ahead. If our objective (a global effort made by individuals with a common goal) is to overcome this crisis as soon as possible but without losing sight of the bigger long-term picture, which is, in brief, to feel fulfilled, learn from our experiences, grow and make the world a better place, than let us start with asking the question:
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What do you want a future to look like?
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Note by the author:
The word “REASET’ is a new term coined by Tom Meyers in 2010 and first published in his B.Sc. thesis publication (2014): “The effect of the Reaset Approach o the autonomic nervous system, state-trait anxiety and musculoskeletal pain in patients with work-related stress.”
