PEARLS OF WISDOM: Your level of risk

      Robert H. Schuller, a well known minister, shared some of his pearls of wisdom about life:  “Never cut a tree down in the wintertime, make a negative decision in the low time or make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods.  Wait and be patient.  The storm will pass and the spring will come.”  Has Covid-19 impacted your mood and your patience? If you are like me with an active social life, you have been impacted. Now the question becomes, how do we remain patient and navigate our lives during these restrictive new rules and uncertain times? Not only must we figure out how to remain patient but how to keep ourselves safe.   During a pandemic, there is no such thing as a guarantee of safety because our safety depends on enclaves and the villages of the world.  It is therefore, incumbent on each of us to determine what safety looks like to us and the  level of risk we are willing to take  to  feel safe.  For me, the question is not only about my level of patience and risks, but  how do I survive amidst this pandemic.  As an African American woman, over age sixty, I am in a high-risk category. I know first-hand the destructive force of this virus and have lost relatives and friends to it. I have also prayed for others who thankfully recovered.  I understand that leaving my home entails some level of risk. Not only when leaving my home but when  receiving  packages at my door.  
      For many, the Covid-19 has not reached home yet because they have not  witnessed first-hand the experience of standing in long food lines, being prevented from seeing a loved one in the hospital on a respirator or have not experienced a friend or family member's  body  being stored in a tractor trailer  freezer.  They have somehow managed to  insulate themselves from the carnage that has spilled into our daily lives.  They cannot be confined or inconvenienced and feel the need to bust free, and live in a pretend normal world. However, deny as they may, they are still amongst us  walking, and breathing the same air in a real pandemic environment.  Just as smoke drifts and circulates in a crowded room,  they too are not immune from the pandemic's reach.
​     Today, I am asking  the question, what level of risk are you willing to take and what  rewards will you receive for the risk taken?   Let's hope that your rewards are worth the risk.
       I do not end this article  with "Be safe" but rather "manage your own survival."  
​Patricia Crews