As COVID-19 started picking up steam with the rate it was spreading, I was feeling some apprehension. I was feeling more fearful of my family’s safety than my own. There was a level of anxiety over my leadership ability to keep my employees safe.

As I started hearing stories of some of the “side effects” of the lockdowns, this fear started to change to hope. The rivers were becoming cleaner from factories being shut down. The air was becoming cleaner with fewer cars on the road. There were stories in the news daily of people working together. I started to feel a sense of hope that COVID-19 had forced a global reset button.

I had felt for a long time that there needed to be a massive shake-up. We simply could not continue to abuse Mother Nature and our planet the way that it had been. There now was unmistakable evidence that changing our ways would and could create a better future.

All of the promise of better days with vaccines available seems to be waning with the fourth wave of infections hitting. The virus variants are getting more deadly and the polarization is getting stronger. It no longer feels like “we are in this together”. There seems to be such an overwhelming layer of anger out there. Anger is everywhere.

As a businessman, one of my biggest disappointments has been the opportunistic ways of so many companies to crank up profits. On the one hand, there are vast numbers of small businesses that could not survive the lockdowns. On the other hand, there are the large corporations who used the situation to streamline their operations with little or no care for the lives of those they discarded. All in the pursuit of profits. Those workers that were left were being pushed harder and harder in unsafe conditions.

There is enough of all the basics for everyone and yet waste is increasing exponentially. The spread between the haves and the have-nots is increasing. Compassion and empathy are in ever-dwindling supply.

Mother Nature continues to fight back with scary intensity. When will this all end? How will it end? I continue to work away in the region I have been placed, serving those who cross my path as best I can, in the faith that my contribution will have an impact. It will make a difference.

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