My Fellow Compassionate Capitalists:
Some days are completely unforgettable while at the same time….understandably…. those are the days we want to completely forget!
The old school prescription for trauma is to “shove that crap down and bury it deep inside“.
The problem with that is those things which we refuse to deal with, acknowledge, and move through, tend to fester and show up at the most inconvenient times in our lives in an attempt to derail our progress.
Such was a 24 hour period of my life when I was in the fourth grade.
Bear with me!
When you’re that young and insecure it takes real courage to tell a girl that you like her. After weeks of failed attempts I finally passed THE NOTE to “Anna” just as the final bell rang and we all were let out of school for the day.
I was excited to see if the YES box had been marked with an X the next day.
My mom was active in our church and she picked me up from school in order to go there and set up for an activity that night. There was an electrician climbing around inside the gym roof. I had this weird feeling I should tell him to be careful but who is going to listen to a 10 year old kid. Later on that evening I immediately regretted that decision as a ceiling tile came down while I was playing basketball…. almost hitting me. I looked up and barely got out of the way as I watched the electrician drop through the 20’ high ceiling and bounce about six feet off the gym floor.
I tried to be brave and waited until I got home and was able to bury myself under the bed covers to cry. The next day on the school bus everybody was talking about what had happened the night before. I was trying to be brave and counteract my desire to ball like a baby with humor and sarcasm. The bus stopped at the intersection and I made what I’m sure was some inappropriate comments. The next thing I knew a street sweeper had swerved into the oncoming lane of one of the other school buses. The crash caused an immediate explosion and I watched the street sweeper burn to death and the bus driver as well as passengers in the first few rows receive catastrophic burns. The passenger directly behind the bus driver was “Anna“.
WTF!!!!! Is what many of you are thinking now…..as I was thinking that when it happened. And that was only in a 24 hour period! Disbelief, insecurity, horror, trying to deal with death while everything I had been taught dealt with life. This is the trauma that almost everyone has felt when the entire world and its economies shut down for Covid.
I was the one that made sure an adult went to get an ambulance. I was the one that handed the fire extinguisher to our bus driver. While these acts were small compared to the problem…they were still actions that eventually made me feel as if I was part of the solution.
Covid has happened and is happening. Governments really did mandate us to shelter in place. Jobs that we thought we were secure in….really did go away. Many people who we’re living the dream of homeownership are now months behind on their mortgages. The price of new housing is so out of control it has kicked first time home buyers out of the market while highlighting the perceived gap between the “haves” and the “have not‘s”. Chemicals are being put into the food supply to prolong shelf life. Gas prices are high. Our military’s leadership is being perceived as weak due to recent actions.
All of this IS happening and the shell shock is deafening! The only chance of recovery that we have is to do what we always have done.
ACTION!!!!
Action…no matter how small is the first step to reconciling what is going on. While we may all want to rewind the clock a bit… the only thing that will allow is for our past to hold our future hostage.
We must acknowledge, show up, clean up, and put hope in our hearts today so that we can look forward to a tomorrow.
There are Compassionate Capitalists everywhere who will deploy capital for housing and businesses when the time is right. This will create opportunities based on the current circumstances and the adjustments that must be made. More importantly however, there truly is a seemingly unlimited supply of good hearted people who refuse to give up despite overwhelming odds. People who have inherited the courage from their ancestors who have overcome every “civilization ending“ catastrophe that has plagued man since the beginning of time.
People who refuse to give up.
People who live today in order to have a future tomorrow.
People who “NEVER awake from the American Dream”.
