“Why are you so f’n cryptic?” One of my buddies asked me.
Looking at what I wrote this week about the lockup he said—
“I just want to know where you stand.”
“I told you where I stand,” I said.
“I’m focused on the ONLY one thing you KNOW.”
“What are you saying?”
I responded by asking him some questions like—
Do you believe that this pandemic is so deadly that we needed to lockup our world to combat it?
That countries like Australia are “lucky” they’ve contained the deaths to 88 at the cost of shutting down the entire country?
Seeing global fatalities are still only a third of the annual flu season, do you think our extreme response is justified?
Could you have imagined a situation where we only quarantined those at risk, not the entire planet, and we kept people and our economy alive?
Is it smart to, in the face of protecting a small number of people at risk, impose economic ruin on them and the rest of us?
Do you believe the reason we’re still in lockdown is hospital capacity and flattening the curve?
Can you imagine a scenario where instead of using data to justify the lockup, we’re looking at data like the rate of antibodies and how many young and healthy people got sick, and making every case to get on with life?
Does it make sense to you that we wouldn’t resume life as normal until a vaccine has been developed?
Isn’t there merit to quarantining those at risk and allowing the rest of us to develop herd immunity?
Is this our MO now? If a second wave pops up, or heaven forbid a completely different virus appears next year and every year thereafter, are we all locked in our homes again?
How good do you feel about the government rewarding your neighbors to snitch on you for leaving your home, tracking apps, thermal scans, and every next level of surveillance?
Do you perhaps imagine that there are other agendas at work here?
“Yes, I can see all of that, so are you saying you believe this is stupid?” He asked me.
“No, coz you can see another side too”
So I asked him more questions like—
How certain are you that you have all of the facts to be having opinions and making determinations about what you believe is right and wrong?
Do you believe everything you read in the media? Which media is your “truth?” And which media do you dismiss as wrong?
Can you imagine that governments might not share everything with you and the media?
That perhaps there have been far more deaths attributed to this, or the risks are far more significant than those minimizing this as less lethal than the seasonal flu?
Would you say that less deaths than the seasonal flu is a relevant measure, and that there are no risks with just getting on with our lives?
Who gets to decide what response is extreme? Is even one death, let alone hundreds of thousands, something we should respond to avoid?
It’s easy to look at the number of deaths in hindsight, but what if we hadn’t locked up the world and millions of people had died?
Even if it mostly affects people who are old and sick, who gets to decide whose lives are put at risk?
How don’t you know that the lockdowns have saved humanity from a greater threat than you can imagine, and they remain necessary?
What can you possibly think you know about viruses, hospital capacity and flattening the curve?
Facing a new pathogen that could quickly mutate, would you take the risk of it spreading more, or do everything you can to right now stamp it out?
What if you took the view that we had it contained and then it spreads far worse and kills far more people?
Who says that the sky is falling economic predictions are accurate and that we won’t just quickly get on with business as usual as the markets seem to point to?
Would you want it on your conscience to know people will die because you believed the economic threat was greater?
So long as people are happily going along with it and the world hasn’t gone to shambles, why wouldn’t you keep the current strategy?
Is there a difference between having a healthy distrust of authority, and thinking your job is to question everything they’ve been appointed and elected to do?
Are different agendas at work a good or a bad thing? For what you might give up, what benefits do you get in return?
“OK, I get all that, so what are you saying?”
The ONLY thing you KNOW is…
It doesn’t matter what you believe about this situation.
Whether you believe what you see in the media or not.
Think there’s other agendas at work here or not.
If you were in charge whether you’d make the same or different decisions.
How long it might go on or what the repercussions might be.
The ONLY thing you KNOW is—
It is what it is.
And you can spend hours and hours and hours.
And days and days and days.
And weeks and weeks and weeks…
Thinking about all this stuff.
Reading this or that. Going back and forth on what you perceive with your limited information and lens of the world to be right or wrong.
Or as I wrote about, you can choose to focus on the ONLY thing you KNOW—
You have zero influence over this situation, and the best you can do is focus on what you can control.
This was the MASSIVE realization my powerful Focus Tools helped me learn, that you can get free in this video program.