The Light at the End of the Pandemic Tunnel
How to use the hidden potential of the pandemic for a personal transformation
This post continues exploring the Three Horizons framework as it applies to the pandemic. Last time we spoke about the first horizon which focuses on building resilience. It is an essential foundation for overcoming turbulent times and for conceptual and creative thinking that is now needed more than ever. We also discussed how different narratives that we use to make sense of what is going on, create our images and expectations about the future, and hence motivate us to act in a way that shapes that particular future. The narrative I find useful is that pandemic is a test: it can transform us if we choose to transform. Let’s explore how we can use this narrative to make better personal choices for a better future.
Horizon 2 — The Tunnel of Choices
The idea of passing a test as an acknowledgement of a personal transformation, a change in one’s status is not new. For centuries, traditions like rites of passage were used to signify the transition of clan members from one stage of life into another. For example, Sateré-Mawé tribe from the Brazilian Amazon challenges their 13 years old boys with the Bullet Ant Initiation as the proof that they are ready to join adult members of the society. Twenty times throughout several months’ period, the boys go through a ten-minute endurance test: they wear gloves full of live, biting bullet ants. As part of the challenge, they are not supposed to cry or show weakness: being able to cope with the pain means they are ready for manhood.
While not all rites of passage are so painful, all of them have something in common. There is this time of ambiguity and disorientation between the beginning of the ritual and its end when the participants had separated from their prior status but haven’t gained the new status yet. This time is called liminality or liminal space. Taking its origin from the Latin word which means “threshold”, it describes the situation when “what was” is gone, but “what’s next” is still unknown. It is when the solutions from the past are not effective anymore, the new solutions are not known yet, and it is hard to tell when this uncertainty will be over. It is like moving along a dark tunnel: feeling a bit claustrophobic, not knowing how long we will have to stay in this unsettling place and whether we will see the light in the end. Sounds familiar? Sounds like the second horizon of the pandemic: the Big Pause.
We have all been to a liminal space even before the pandemic. Be it about leaving a job without having an alternative, ending a relationship or moving to another country — any change in life when what used to be the norm is gone, but nothing has filled the space yet. The new normal has not formed, you haven’t grasped the rules of the game (or haven’t established these rules). Despite the discomfort of the uncertainty, liminal space is full of hidden potential. It offers us the choice: do we transform on the other end of the tunnel or do we just transit to the other side, carrying our old habits with us, remaining immune to change?
If the pandemic is humanity’s riot of passage, testing whether we move from a teenage state to more conscious adulthood, how will we know if we passed the test? How can we shift from the teenage “gimme” attitude to more mature relationships with others and the planet, taking up with our guardianship and stewardship responsibilities, showing empathy and compassion? Is this time, despite all the sorrows it brought, a gift for our civilisation, prompting us to think of the questions which are long overdue to be answered:
· I or We?
· Growth or the Planet?
· Today or Tomorrow?
· And, most importantly, how can we move from “or” to “and”?
Will we embrace the uncertainty and keep moving forward through the tunnel or will we turn around and go back to the old ways? The second horizon is when some of our actions will resist change, trying to reinstate the old normal, some will help us adapt to changes, and others will reorganise current structures and systems, offering glimpses into an alternative future. And it is up to us which of these drivers of change we will support.
Here is what Horizon 2 of the pandemic looks like in practice:
Horizon 3 — On the Other Side of the Tunnel
With collective choices being a sum of our individual decisions, how can we make a better choice at an individual level? Thanks to our vision for the third horizon: the images of the future that we want to see on the other end of the tunnel. Keeping these images in mind while we are in the tunnel, while we have a choice to move forward or to turn back, makes liminal space a place of enormous potential.
For the images of our preferable future to be effective in helping us get closer to that better version of our future selves, they need to be specific. No one has been motivated by the visual of a fog or a pixelated photo yet. The images need to be so specific that we could feel them. This way, our emotions will do the job and give us the agency that we need to keep moving forward. To develop these motivating images, keep asking questions:
· What values are important to you? How can you stay true to them more than ever before and prioritise what is really important to you every single day? If you value personal development, is it something you can start your days with?
· What worldviews and assumptions about what the future should be like do you want to challenge? How can you personally challenge these assumptions by experimenting with new approaches?
· How can you leverage your strengths to create more value for others and to be of service in that future? What weak signals about the needs of the future resonate with you and align with your skill set?
· What old habits and behaviours do you want to leave in the tunnel? What are your underlying assumptions and beliefs that create a barrier for change? Challenge yourself with 21 days of new behaviour and watch your life change.
· What choices will you prioritise? And how can you reframe the choice from “or” to “and” for yourself, blending what might have seemed unblendable in the past? Home and work/education; distance and connection; recycling and convenience; sufficiency and moderation — you name it!
Although these questions can be rational, the ultimate goal is to feel what it is like to make these changes, to live in that future. Once you can feel the future, that future can feel you, too, and you will start getting your personal hints and weak signals that will be showing you the way to it.
Final Thoughts
While the pandemic is a test of our health systems and individuals’ health, it should not be measured only in positives and negatives. It is not just about passing or failing. It is about how we go through it and whether we transform as a result. Like Sateré-Mawé boys who successfully endured their painful rite of passage without showing weakness, collectively, we can transform and move into a more mature stage of civilisation. Or we might choose to reinforce old habits and only transition into adulthood without the underlying transformation. The choice is guided by our values, our images of the future, and our readiness to work on our engrained immunity to change.
The cost of the pandemic is something we would never be able to name, as no price tag can be put on human lives. But the pandemic is also a gift — if we can use it to learn our lessons and transform at an individual, collective and civilisational levels.
