2020 has been a year filled with tests. Tests that none of us could have prepared for. We have collectively been tested by the COVID-19 pandemic. Life as we once knew it feels perpetually on hold. We have been separated from our families, from our friends, from a sense of freedom we once took for granted. We have seen beloved businesses shut their doors, lines at food shelves extend for miles. Parents trying to keep their families afloat, balancing working from home, and becoming teachers at night. Millions just trying to survive.
In the wake of these tests, we saw our SLS team come together and support one another and our clients. We recognized the amazing efforts of our front-line healthcare workers. We praised businesses that weren’t deemed critical, but got creative and shifted their focus to much needed PPE. We came together on Zoom, called our loved ones more often, and reconnected with a greater purpose.
We were together while physically distancing. This all changed on the morning of 5/26, when we woke up to another test. We were reminded once again how quickly a life can be taken at the hands of those who are meant to protect. We watched in collective shock and great sadness at the senseless loss of life. Sadness was quickly replaced with anger, then fear. The pandemic became yesterday’s news. We shifted our focus from keeping our clients and team members healthy to trying to restore a sense of calm and safety.
We can complain about what should have been done by our elected officials, we can remain silent and watch our cities burn, or we can look in the mirror, and challenge ourselves and one another to be better. We can rebuild out of the rubble. We have an opportunity to come together and be honest about the racial microaggression that exists. We can call for equal access and opportunities for everyone. We can be the voice for change. Each of us can make a difference. We can do something for someone.
I love this quote, “If you wait until you can be everything to everybody instead of being something for somebody, you’ll end up being nothing for nobody.”
Many of us want to do something, but we aren’t sure what. Here’s my advice: do something that is authentic to you. You can lead and create change just within your own sphere of influence. Talk with your kids about loving others, write a kind note, bake treats to let something know they are being thought of. As we all know, simple acts of kindness create a ripple that goes grows larger than we may ever know.
