Shoppers have been stocking up before the lockdown. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Shoppers have been stocking up before the lockdown. Photo / Mark Mitchell
COMMENT:
Welcome to your first "lockdown" column. Who would've ever thought we'd be here?
I have a number of "hopes" out of all this.
One, obviously, that it works, the virus is beaten, and we get ourselves out the other side. I enter this more than confident we will.
TheChinese are proof it can be done. Whether we should be revisiting the Chinese and some of their practices is an issue for another day, but if you need an example of taking things seriously - once they actually decided to act - the numbers we have seen out of Wuhan, the wider Hubei province, and indeed China generally these past two weeks are solid evidence we have the answer.
The panic shopping against all logic, advice and fact, has been an embarrassment.
Not as big an embarrassment as Australia and Britain where they truly are feral, but to even have the police at Pak'nSave is an indictment on all who put themselves in a state of mind that simply wasn't necessary.
What I have enjoyed these past two weeks is the reading, watching and listening.
I have never informed myself more on what we are dealing with.
From medical aspects of vaccine trials and drugs treatment advances, to the role of central banks and bonds and yields and debt mechanisms, to the individual decisions and reactions of many countries around the world.
If activating my brain more than normal is going to stave off dementia I will be severely disappointed if I haven't made major advances towards a mentally healthy old age.
If you have time why not use it usefully. As kids are learning and journalling all this from home, why doesn't every one of us have a self-improvement project, read, read and read some more.
I'm also lucky enough to have a snooker table. By the time this is over I will be looking to turn pro, or semi-pro, or maybe just be good for a game at the pub. Either way it'll be fun.
Given we will get through this, it's critically important, especially if we have learned from point two, to look ahead.
What does the rest of this year look like? And are we in a position to ask some fundamental questions, look at some fundamental changes to our lives and the way we conduct them?
The greatest of missed opportunities would be to do what we've done previously.
Panic, brace, get through it, and then carry on like it never happened.
All the positive stories around dealing with the virus are out of Asia, not the West. They went through Sars and learned, and that learning has been in practice these past few weeks, they've taken it seriously, followed instruction, been in it together and will emerge the stronger for it.
I hope working from home is a permanent evolution, they said it would happen 30 years ago, it never did, why not ?
ALERT_STAGES
Our workplace has been empty for a week, it's peaceful, efficient, the traffic is better.
Most of those at home I have talked to love it.
Maybe that four-day week idea will be the norm.
Will we ask ourselves how much of what we do isn't really necessary, how much of an economy is built on nothing more than indulgence and frippery?
How many jobs never really existed, how many businesses when trouble struck literally couldn't last the next day. And if we ask those questions, do we conduct a plan and build our future around real answers to those questions, or just go back to whatever it was we were doing before?
A time of crisis allows us the chance to do something good, it's a reason to shake things up, to snap out of daily complacency. All good entrepreneurs, businesses, sports people and success stories do it, they look for constant and continual improvement. As the old saying goes, never waste a crisis.
