We’re used to using the reset button on our devices to reboot them. We think nothing of shutting down our technology and starting again.

We didn’t know how to do that for ourselves and humanity until this week.
We’d forgotten we could come together as communities and nations and agree to pause for the collective good. We didn’t believe it was possible for humanity to reset.

Now we do.

As each town, city and country around the world responds to halt the spread of the virus, we simultaneously see the spread of our shared understanding.

From Sydney to Stockholm, we find ourselves on a more empathetic footing. For once, we know how it feels to live through the same experience. The contagion is shifting from ubiquitous fear to universal hope.

When we witness the agency of our fellow humans across the globe as they navigate daily life during the crisis, we suddenly discover our agency.

The quarantined community in Italy, gathering on balconies in the evening to sing together, the author broadcasting virtual readings of his books and the outpouring of immense gratitude for the delivery drivers, shelf stackers and checkout operators we had come to take for granted.

All of these happenings give us the permission we thought we needed to reset, reboot and reclaim our agency and our humanity.

We get to choose how to create the future we want to see when this passes.

Image by S Alb