Thankful

Back in January, the first thing that came to my mind was a huge conspiracy that the world would face regarding the Coronavirus. Sometimes, with the constant communication of “fake news”, one cannot make heads or tails of what is real and what is not. The “Chinese Virus” as Donald Trump calls it became the most prevalent anxiety plaguing my mind at the time. In February, my wife and I went to San Francisco to attend a Coronation Ball. I thought to myself, how odd, no one is wearing a mask even though they say that it would be required in the airport at some point. But truth be told, it did not malinger in my mind for too long as we had work to do. We had to attend events, perform, show our faces to represent Hawaii. We were too busy to see the real news. Just like that huge wave that washed some tables and chairs into the ocean in Brazil when what appeared to be a tidal wave that came in, we just ignored the signs and went on our merry way. We ate at Denny’s, we went to Target, and we even went to Walgreens. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary.

The moment we came back more conversations at work triggered my colleagues to share valuable information about social distancing up to 6 feet, washing your hands, and how the Coronavirus could live on surfaces for quite some time. Next, the company started to send everyone home. Prior to working from home, I thought to myself, I do not want to work from home if I need to do the same things that I do every day, working for a company. But we had no choice. I quickly packed up all my desktop computer, keyboard, monitor, mouse, and tried to beat everyone to the punch being that my manager lives in a different State; but I did not have the right wires to fire up my computer. The very next day, I had to go back to the office and retrieve the right chords to do my job right. Amid all of this, I started to see my family members true colors because of quarantine. Two of my family members started to initiate a strategy called divide and conquer. They started pulling their support by not paying the rent that was due to the management company of where we live. They started to get irritable and started taking my wife and me for granted.

The only emotion that I can feel from this entire ordeal is a sense of gratitude. Now, one can see that people are wearing masks and providing evidence that people really do care about other people. Now I can appreciate working from home and looking at the bright side, saving money for gas, hair care product, and store-bought lunches. Also, my two family members left and went their separate ways so that I do not need to feel used and abused, physically and mentally scarred forever. I am glad that they can live their live and I can live mine without having to look over my shoulder in a messed up financially insecure environment. How dare people think that the world revolves around them! How dare we even attempt to fathom that our situation is worse than others.

Everyone is struggling right now and yet people still want to take and take and take. All I want to do is add value to each and every one of you by giving you a good or service so that I may entertain people either with knowledge, skills, attributes, and behaviors so that in the future, these others can do the same.

I am so thankful that today I can see the opportunity of this bad thing "COVID-19."