Inessential

It’s humbling to be in self-quarantine for a number of weeks.  You quickly realize how dispensable you are.  Your family does not starve.  Your home does not crumble.  The desert does not swallow your garden. In fact, the sun – perplexing star that it is – continues to rise and set each day, utterly without your assistance. 

Even more disappointingly, your employer continues to function, and your clients continue to manage their businesses – quite without any aid from you.

How very lowering!  You are simply not necessary to the planet’s existence.

(Doesn’t everyone know that nothing gets done unless mother tends to it!)

Don’t worry if your ego is crushed by the world’s survival in your absence.  Consider your unimportance a positive.  Egotism is a cage manufactured from the expectations of others. So, why confine yourself to such an irrelevant space? There is a songbird trapped in that cage, a little creature that is closer to your true nature. You’ve been ignoring it. Now you can pay attention to it.

When the world looks away – or when we sequester ourselves from the world – we can open the cage door, let the bird out, and leave our captivity behind.  We can stretch our wings, free our true selves, and abandon our weighty egos. 

In other words, it is liberating to be replaceable. It is liberating to know we may fly our own path without severely impacting the little corner of the world we inhabit.

Sadly, this kind of psychological freedom is illusory and temporary. Quarantine is normally connected to events and health conditions that restrict our ability to pursue loftier ambitions. And, ultimately, we must rejoin the ‘real’ world, and be hemmed in by deadlines, technical questions, professional goals, and laundry.

At the end of quarantine, responsibilities return very quickly. Our newfound freedom evaporates when faced with those who have been covering our normal duties: They want to rest or return to their own primary concerns.  They managed without us, but at a cost to themselves.

In the end, we rediscover that our mundane, everyday activities make an important contribution to the world.  Yes, there are others who can do what we do – they have sufficient skills – but they cannot carry the burden alone, and they cannot carry it indefinitely.

The essential lesson learned from our quarantine is that our contribution, although necessary, is not as unique as we once believed. 

Follow The Numerate Ninny on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or at: https://thenumerateninny.com/

Find my books on all Amazon platforms.