Balancing out the gloom

Yesterday was my doom and gloom post, which as you can see from this graph published today, is going to be our new reality for awhile.  Unfortunately, we're just at the beginning:

Despite all this, there have been a ton of bright spots, from the local government stepping up and providing critical services for the vulnerable:

to citizen-led mutual aid groups springing up in a decentralized manner, built primarily on Google Docs and Sheets:

to scrappy entrepreneurs pivoting an offline business to a brand new online-driven business model in a matter of days:

A Black Female Founder Pivots To Meet The Challenges Of Coronavirus

Savvy entrepreneurs can provide solutions to the problems created by social isolation.

ForbesGeri Stengel

These examples and stories of forward progress–government programs that demonstrate how the system should work, collective action by people for their communities, and the creativity and resilience of individuals adapting to change while staying on-mission–have probably been the only thing to keep me motivated and productive (though I do look forward to seeing Lego 2 movie on the newly free-d HBO Go/Now services).

All that said, boy is there no shortage of huge challenges ahead for all of us. I hope collectively we start to see that, as well as a change in how we evaluate what is and isn't worth spending our time (and concern) on.