Care

Solicitude is a basic human instinct. We demonstrate our concern to everybody even if we don't know them. Yet we show our concern to our loved ones or others we know and dear to us even more because it brings a certain degree of responsibility with it. We want to look after our loved ones long before anyone do. And in this time of health crisis, we need to demonstrate our love for others a lot more.

Yet what about those who are genuinely geared to caring for others? For example, our health care professionals have been trained for years to provide treatment even to strangers or someone that they don't know fully about. This human care - giving task is often physically exhausting. Our bodies need to rest periodically to heal for another round of providing care. But it is also the physical exhaustion that is easy to regain.

There's also another form of care exhaustion which is much more draining, either emotional or mental. It is difficult to contend with because it persists in one's mind and will be carried around even though we retire our bodies. It also hampers the efficiency of our sleep time. The mental pain continues until it's resolved.

Our medical professionals have been delivering the requisite care for COVID-19 patients for four months only to regain their strength and vitality. They face to face death second, minute, hour or day, there is a danger to their lives. And there's no guarantee that one day, a tired body and mind can have the same vigor.

Our medical practitioners need their physical and emotional strength and vigor to be filled up again. We need the affirmation in a way that their families, friends, society, organizations and government support their challenges and struggles. Now than ever, they need our assurance that our prayers and compliance with the safety guidelines are at their sides and back. They called for new policies and ways to do things, and they are not to be berated in return because they know that revolution is and will never be the solution to a health problem. 

We live in a society where accountability is shared. It's easy to say "it's not my kids, it's not my culture, it's not my country, it's not my problem." Some men I consider to be my heroes are those who see the need and respond. We do know who these people are in this pandemic.

We are all looking for a society in which we are really looking after one another. And a transformed economy and society to make us more resilient, driving changes in how we work, operate and get around that fosters positive health and environmental outcomes.

We have a responsibility to look after the humanity. Expressing empathy for others provides deep fulfillment and inner energy. We need friendship as social beings, but friendship does not come from wealth and strength, but from being compassionate and considerate of others.

We are all together in this world and the only measure that matters about our character is how we look after the least fortunate among us. Why we feel about each  other, not how we handle ourselves. This, I suppose, is all that really matters.