Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
-Angela Duckworth
Backbone. Constancy. Fortitude. Guts. Spunk. Grit.
Living through during the COVID-19 pandemic requires grit: the ability to face hardship and/or danger with courage. Boredom endured during social distancing is the least of our worries, which at present include: depression, job loss, financial worries, health fears, home and time management of WFH families having to homeschool, domestic violence, inability to comfort the dying, inability to grieve with family members, exhaustion for essential workers, etc.
Marathons require pacing, endurance, the ability to push on despite pain, and the willingness to recover while still in pain. Our approach to the emotional aspects of this social distancing marathon requires each of these.
We must pace ourselves to make it through the long haul. We must continue to endure when it seems like we can go no further. We must push on despite emotional pain and fatigue that we experience because of guilt, loss, fear, anxiety, etc. And we must contemplate a period of recovery through more pain as the emotional muscles we stretched and pushed to their limits heal.
Backbone. Constancy. Fortitude. Guts. Spunk. Grit.
We need the backbone to stand firmly behind the decisions we have made regarding preventative actions, despite the hardships and further suffering it may cause us.
We need to call upon the depth of the courage within ourselves to move in solidarity through the uncertainty of the days ahead of us.
We need to soak ourselves in grit so that we can support of others who are fighting the pandemic from the trenches.
And we will need to call on our grit to support the mass grief that will hit us at the other end of this pandemic as we grieve with families who didn’t get to mourn or bury their loved ones in the way they had hoped.
Backbone. Constancy. Fortitude. Guts. Spunk. Grit.
A.N.Carroll 