As we near the beginning of November – awed that we are into the countdown to the end of the year, bewildered by the blur behind us – it is impossible to not pause and think of all that has been.
2020 is not over yet, but still, who could have known that the roaring ‘20s would come with such a fierce bite!
This year has taken us all by surprise. Globally grounded, it has kept us in a state of disconnectedness in so many ways, regardless of how our virtual world operating, organising and other e-social skills have strengthened.
Since the beginning, as fear spread as quickly as the virus from East to West, the world became united in a state of shock. Together we have transitioned through 2020, month after month, wondering how long will this last, how severe will be the losses of lives and livelihoods, how we will possibly get back on our feet again – especially as a member of the global Travel & Tourism community that has been brought to its knees.
COVID-19 stopped us. Logistically and emotionally. Initial closing of businesses, borders and skies forced us to look carefully at the worlds in which we operated – what we valued deeply, what values we held dear. With dramatic restrictions on our mobility, the radius of our lives decreasing like never universally experienced before this generation, we have been forced to restructure our worlds, blur our lines (if not erase completely), rethinking the role of work, the role of play, the role of family, the role of friends, the time we have for each other, the space that we have for ourselves.
Ultimately 2020 has been a defining line of text of this generation. Mother Nature, fed-up with how poorly we were taking care of her world, upset with how we were focusing on our own needs at the cost of hers, forced us all to stop, sent us back to our rooms to think about what we had done wrong. We were not to be let out until we had figured out how we could do better – we were going to build forward better.
So, how are we going to create a world that is more caring of not just ourselves, but of our communities of our countries and over our environment around us? Before 2020 we talked about sustainability. In the main the term was used, at best, as a strategic pillar of business and government strategies. At a minimum it was a strategic footnote. But did we really respect it for what it meant, past, present and future? Do we now?
Now it is THE priority.
With our world being grounded we have seen, finally, the need to recognise the definition as so much more than simply ‘green’. ‘Sustainability’ stretches across all dimensions of lives and livelihoods: economic sustainability, cultural sustainability, spiritual sustainability, social sustainability…and environmental sustainability. It is about ensuring we do not put ourselves in a position of erosion, extinction, bankruptcy, nothingness. It is about sustaining survival. Simple
The bottom line is quadruple bottom line. ‘Sustainability’ is a call to action.
How then do we look back the world we are leaving in 2020? And look forward to the one ahead in 2021? Looking back is not enough. Nor looking forward. Creating a sustainable future demands that we look into the mirror. It has been remarkable to see how now, just days before country after country in the northern hemisphere goes into the second wave of COVID-19 with second rounds of lockdowns, and just days before election day begins in the United States of America, many of us look at the challenge ahead with nervousness in our hearts, untrusting of the outcomes. Crisis, a next one, may be just around the corner.
This year has exposed very vividly the difference in our wiring – how our brains process crisis, and how our hearts and bodies respond thereafter. And that’s okay. People respond differently to crisis. People respond differently to opportunity. People respond differently to risk. People respond differently to joy.
Through each passing day, month, COVID-19 phase of 2020, we are all in a situation where we are responding differently, together. All we know for certain is that uncertainty is ahead of us. It is not about political uncertainty, social uncertainty, economic uncertainty. As our countries work through the pandemic and its impact, closing down country after country, it is about uncertainty at a humanitarian level.
Are we able to take care of each other, together, equally, for the long run?
As we look ahead, as shared earlier, this call to action has become a defining element of not just this year, but this generation. We have been so blessed to have had so much for so long. In 2020 we have been forced to stop and think: are we ready for the world ahead of us as active participants, not just admiring passengers?
Now is the time, and the opportunity, for all of us to step up, masks on, ready to create a stronger, more united, more genuinely grateful tomorrow.
2020 has roared, exposing the ferocity of its bite. This is our time to roar back. For as beautifully expressed by Benito Mussolini: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a lamb.”
We live in a world without smiles. At least in 2020.
Why? Because we live in a COVID-19 world of masks. Masks, protecting one another, in a year of a pandemic that is defining our generation, even though we’re still trying to define what exactly it is and how exactly it is going to impact us.
It has not been easy getting used to living in a world without smiles, especially considering how dearly we have needed smiles this year – smiles to provide comfort, smiles to provide calm, smiles to show compassion, smiles to show we care. But in our quest to care by covering up, we lose our smiles.
To remove smiles from daily life is to remove sunshine. Always there, even is cracking through heavy clouds overhead, the comfort of the sun’s presence sets a mood. There is always reason to look up.
In the first days and weeks of 2020 as COVID-19 spread across the globe, masks began to appear. Rapidly. Regulations, whether by choice or by mandate, differing though they may be country to country, became a growing presence. Some plain, some patterned, some creative expressions of personality, all were symbols of growing fears around an invisible, life and lifestyle changing phenomena. For most, the thought of a pandemic was a concept beyond all comprehension. The ability to protect oneself was beyond anything familiar. We all needed to take cover. Including covering up.
And so masks began to appear as clouds overhead only grew heavier and heavier, skies rapidly filling with trepidation, storms brewing with uncertainty around the disasters ahead. Doors, borders, skies all closed, human connection was blocked.
As time has passed, the block has become the norm. What we thought, hoped, was just a few passing months of management of this new challenge to our shared world has become a crisis defining our year. Possibly even longer. More and more masks surround us, more and more smiles have disappeared.
With this natural, omnipresent form of emotional connection covered, with our expressions of care, love, joy, excitement, gratitude, compassion, consideration and concern covered, how are we to communicate? How are we to remain hopeful?
A new language has emerged, a new channel for communication: our eyes.
Especially in these still fragile times. Like smiles, eyes have become a universal form of expression, a way of sharing, immediately, one’s mindset, a doorway into one’s thoughts.
The eyes reveal far more. When we were able to see smiles, we may never have appreciated the power of the eyes. In these COVID19 times when awareness of others is so important, eyes reveal fear, they reveal friendliness. With fatigue and frustration increasingly becoming a part of daily restrictions to life as we once knew it, choosing to ease off of caution rather than keep a mask on or keep a safe distance, eyes can reveal flippancy, and they can reveal forgetfulness.
To travel once again after so many months grounded is to see, feel, and appreciate, the power of the eyes.
As slowly our world is reopening, tourism cautiously re-starting, it is impossible to not notice the different look in the eyes of strangers, travellers, and the eyes of those being travelled to. From airports to airlines, taxi drivers to hotels, it’s all in the eyes. Whoever it is, it is the eyes that now speak.
And in those eyes, one gets a whole new understanding of the COVID-19 world in which we live, and in which we are trying to travel. Communication of the eyes has become one that we rely on to be able to trust. And as expressed by the Secretary General of the UNWTO, “Trust is the new currency”.
Trust. All of it is channelled through the eyes. There are few other ways of communicating that sense of “I will take care of me to take care of you.”
This is critical as we continue to try to make sense of so much that remains changing, rapidly. From a travel perspective, these changes have been in many places and for many people, painfully, the opening and then quickly closing of borders, hotels, restaurants, minds – lives and livelihoods changed in a moment.
How do we make sense of it all in the world of travel? At least in the next 12 months, we need to recognise that the language of the eyes is one that we need to rely onto be able to reconnect with the world, recognising that people in the world are reconnecting with their own world. The lack of a smile does not mean the lack of feeling.
For millions around us, their eyes are filled with fear – their lives and their livelihoods being taken away because of this invisible pandemic that has hit every single one of the 7.9 billion people in the world, right between the eyes, and in the heart.
In our hearts, through our eyes, we need to ensure we do not lose sight of the need to remain compassionate towards others. As hard as these times are, as hard as it can be thinking beyond the “I” to consider the “we” and the “them”, we need to appreciate that with so much around us continuing to be challenging, and changing – all of this scary – we still have a long time until this is all over.
There is a reason why we are all familiar with the expression: “The eyes are the mirror to the soul.” In these times of unparalleled crisis, because this invisible, agnostic, inescapable virus puts everyone at risk, everyone needs everyone. As confident and courageous and cocooned as we may think we are, our eyes reveal how we need the consideration and compassion of others to maintain stamina to see the end of this generation-defining time.
Ultimately the warmth and wonder of our world comes through connecting with people. 2020’s #COVID19-defined year has unlocked a new way of communicating, a new way of connecting – giving us a new reason to look up. x
Just 10 days ago the world watched in absolute horror as the Port of Beirut was shaken to the ground – the hopes and lives of the people of Beirut, and across Lebanon, altered irreversibly.
Immediately one looks for reason. How? Why? Why now? What now?
The Gods were angry.
But whose Gods, and why?
So many options. So many reasons. And so what – what good does the debating do?
Whatever the source, the stretch of recovery ahead, or the arguments surrounding righting wrongs, it feels as though 2020 has become a forced daily reflection of the fact that global complexity has entered a new creative territory: fiction, possibly even science fiction.
04.08.2020. With whiplash speed, global focus immediately shifts. From COVID-19 spikes, surges, second and third wave storylines, the story immediately, dramatically, tragically moved to Beirut – investigations around the sources of the explosion, questions around how simple fertilizer could cause such profound destruction, questions around sources, questions around survivors, questions around the future of one of the world’s most monitored cities as a reflection of rumblings of change. Beirut was already in a devastated state of infrastructure and leadership system paralysis, its people already struggling to remain hopeful around a stronger, safer, more secure tomorrow. And then, in a split second, these rumblings literally exploded, rocking the nation – its shockwaves tearing at the heart of its flag while tearing across the world.
As the numbers of lives and livelihoods lost grew, statistics turning faces and families into figures for ongoing monitoring, it was the individual stories that started to emerge that kept the world’s hearts and minds centered on what really mattered. Who really mattered. Every single person in Beirut who’s life was not broken because of the blast.
A signature impression of that now-historic day’s unimaginable moment of devastation: an exquisite bride swept away during her photo shoot, live video footage capturing the transition of one of the most beautiful moments of her life into one of the most horrific. As revealed in a touching follow-up CNN interview, her life and that of her love were spared….but her love for her native Lebanon will never be the same. Her heart is broken, her hopes for a country once adored are broken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kPL1MdexeA
As are those of families having to deal with immense loss of loved ones, loved places, lives unable to be lived. The challenges continue. The people of Beirut immediately took to the streets to clean up the rubble, claim back their lives.
The crisis facing Beirut in the aftermath of the port explosion, and resignation of Government soon after, has left a deep, dark, devastating crater in the country’s economic, political and social structures, not to mention emotional. It will take years and billions to rebuild and recovery. To heal.
Suddenly a variation in the scene emerges: some are wearing masks, some are not. The masks are not for protection from the dust and debris. The masks are to protect them from COVID-19.
Oh good lord, COVID-19.
“It’s just one crisis after another“, millions around the world can be heard saying in despair, disbelief and hope-fatigue.
But it’s not. There is, and always will be, a fundamental flaw in such a statement.
In times of crisis great minds and hearts come together in an effort to ensure that not only is the crisis’ impact minimised, but to try to find the truisms that will take us forward repeatedly. We keep hearing that every crisis prepares us for the next, every opportunity to learn making us stronger. Crisis after crisis after crisis.
Philosophically this is correct.
Practically, however, it is simply wrong.
Crisis is not linear – it is layered.
In Lebanon, COVID-19 did not stop in Beirut because there needed to be an immediate start to cleaning up the city – it’s infrastructure, it’s politics, it’s hopes for the future.
As we now move through August we see that in the southern part of the U S and in the Caribbean, once again, hurricane season is starting. Mother Nature will not stop the annual, cyclical clock because we are focused on COVID-19.
There will be a next crisis, and a next, and a next, be it economic, political, social, natural, beyond-fictional. These are all layers. One on top of the other, varying in degrees of duration, damage, depth of impact.
Look again at Lebanon – a place now facing one of the greatest social, political and economic challenges of its generation (if not history) with COVID19, economic and political collapse, and infrastructure eradication. All of this, all while was already facing the pressures of compassionately hosting over a 1.5 million refugees that were fleeing the war in Syria, refugees trying to find peace, protection and promise in a neighbouring nation. The refugee crisis does not stop for COVID-19. COVID-19 does not stop for cleanup. The clean-up does not stop until a new, trusted Government is created.
Crisis is layered. And what we must make sure we do is not forget one of those layers.
As we layer on the next, adding on layers and layers, it is vital that we recognise through it all that no one facing these layers should ever stand alone. Layers, their impact, and their victims, cannot be ranked. Their interwoven nature must be recognised and respected as a critical part of holistic, humane recovery.
As seen with COVID-19, our shared world’s invisible, primal, merciless, crisis completely uncaring of borders, boundaries, politics, lives, livelihoods, age, gender, culture, seasons or social standing,:
COVID-19’s mental health crisis does not wait until physical health crisis is over,
its economic crisis does not wait for the mental health crisis to pass,
surviving the physical health crisis of Wave 1 does not protect us from Wave 2.
The layers are all connected.
As are we all, wherever on the map, on the curve, on the news lineup, we may be. And in today’s 2020+ world of layered, logic-defying, longevity-redefining crisis, the message from Mother Nature is clear, the human truth undeniable: we either all win…or we all lose.
So too the truths of crisis:
Crisis will never be linear – we need to live with, push through, survive, and stay connected to work to suppress the layers.
Crisis will never leave us – they will always be present, in one form or another, in one layer or another.
and critically:
Crisis must never define us. Our definition comes from our layers of faith and fortitude.
As our world works through the Summer of 2020 in the Northern hemisphere and Southern hemisphere winter sets in, we find ourselves locked into a year focused on COVID19. No longer are we looking to making it through in a matter of months. 2020 is a living case study, we all a part of the lessons and learnings of ‘here & now’.
What lies ahead? ‘2021’ has become a part of our planning – personally, professionally, painfully. Patience is paramount. The longing for long lengths of times with loved ones, without turning away from touch, have many becoming increasingly frustrated. The initial fear of suffering the severe effects of COVID19 has, for many, turned into severe impatience. And this has turned into a false sense of confidence.
“See, it hasn’t touched us yet. It can’t be that serious. And if I get it, I can just get over it….and then I can get on with my life.”
For those who have suffered COVID19, the reality of the illness is not limited to the ‘in the moment’. The risks continue, long, long after test results reveal recovery. At the same time that the world is busy managing the curve, trying to find a cure, we are trying to figure out exactly what we are needing to cure. Enduring and/or reoccurring Corona-cough, headaches, mind-haze, whatever it might be, the risks still exist. Even when the light is visible at the end of the tunnel, one can be certain of walking out to the risk of storm clouds still lingering above.
We also know of spikes and surges, early warning signs of the risks of second and third waves. Before we know it new seasons will be upon us.
Still, the world cannot stop. The quest to protect lives alongside livelihoods has become a delicate calculus for countries across the globe.
As a result, countries are opening up. Local businesses are bringing their people back, bringing in protocol-compliant cleaning teams, communicating that ‘it’s time!’. Cautiously, ever so cautiously, countries are unlocking their borders, welcoming back locals and tourists from next door and the country next door, as a means of rebuilding momentum of the heartbeat of their local economy, and society.
Travel & Tourism, a sector vividly exposed as ‘essential’ in our interconnected, interdependent world as a result of the stability, security, and sense of meaningful purpose & productivity it provides to literally billions worldwide, is now being celebrated. And a part of national re-start strategies.
Why? It is not just about the sector’s impact on global financial health – providing an invaluable 1 in 10 jobs worldwide as we entered into 2020, now facing losses of 1 million jobs per day since COVID19 cut off all global mobility of travellers (and trade). It’s about the sector’s vital ecosystem that keeps people connected, physically and emotionally, to the world and their worlds – an essential part of maintaining strength of mental, social, and environmental health and wellbeing, not just financial.
It’s time to step outside. With social distancing and mask wearing protocols being put in place to keep people safe, people are being permitted to get out, unlocking their minds, hearts and doors after 100+ days. Annnnnndddd breathe…….
As we walk past restaurants, cafes, and shops, seeing and feeling even the slightest buzz of activity is incredibly heart lifting. It’s so good to see that people are getting out again, socialising in a way that allows us to feel that our world can and will indeed come back to life in a next normal way, able to touch one another’s lives again, even if unhuggably.
But something’s not right – some places are visibly dark. It is impossible to not notice. For all of the relief there is the reality. There are those that remain shut. The lights are off. The CLOSED sign remains firmly in place. unless the door opens to allow movers to remove furniture. There is no heartbeat coming from within, Only heartache.
Suddenly one realises the sadness of the scene: whoever the owners / operators / staff, whoever’s livelihoods were dependent on that establishment for income, for investment, for a sense of purpose, productivity and peace, there are some, many, questioning “why us?” – their businesses didn’t make it.
These people, these livelihoods, didn’t make it through. These are casualties of COVID19 that must be recognised alongside the lives suffering from the health trauma of COVID19.
As much as we are confident, feeling more comfortable in this surreal discomfort zone of global COVID19 as a part of our daily lives, we must never stop praying for the lives, and livelihoods, of others. There are people right around the corner, right around the neighbourhood, right next door, who are still struggling and will continue to struggle. The health pandemic is merging rapidly and mercilessly with a financial pandemic. There is no vaccine, medically or financially.
Now is the time for continued prayer, patience, and hope – for ourselves, and for others. Especially those for whom the lights remain off.
We have a long journey to walk – we need to walk it together, keeping our safe distance, but still taking each step together. With each step, we need to look and see if those around us need our help, carrying them forward in thought, in prayer, in action.
Because ultimately one of the longest lasting after-effects of COVID19 will be how we re-think, re-define and re-shape, and re-commit to the world into which we will all re-enter. May it be a world of greater connection, greater compassion, and greater appreciation of being able to reach out and touch the lives, and livelihoods, of others.
In these immediate times of smile-covering masks, social distance markings, e-meetings and limited lifestyle re-makings, may we wave more, dine more, tip more, blessing-count more, believe we can create more.
That is where today – 17.06 – is always wished to be spent each year if not able to be with loved ones. Neither are an option this year.
COVID19 has turned the days of 2020 into a long blur – days turning into weeks turning into months turning into a year beyond fiction, beyond explanation, beyond imagination. Through it all, punctuation marks have appeared: question marks, exclamation marks, characters covering up letters for words growled but not to appear in print. And then there are dates in bold text: birthdays.
And so, as this date neared – my birthday – reflection began. Heading to LHR to board a long-haul flight to call in the first moments of the day up at 35k was clearly not going to happen. 17 06 2020 was to be spent in the same place as the past 100+ days of 2020 lockdown. The usual, loved pause of reflection up in the air – anonymous, uncontactable, surrounded by silence, in a bubble of time and space (with bubbles in hand) – was to be a tradition skipped in 2020.
But that did not mean that the pause was to be passed by.
Quite the contrary.
If lockdown of COVID19 has shown us anything it is that time, this time, is vital to making sure that we do not waste the opportunity to stop, centre, see all we have around us, and whisper a word of thanks. Never again (probably, hopefully) will we be asked, demanded, to suspend our daily existence, staying apart, even if it means our livelihoods, economies, communities and future certainties falling apart. Something bigger mattered. COVID19, with its invisibility, and its terrifying ability to take life with evert droplet, mattered more than anything before.
As the world entered lockdown, geography after geography, month after month, together or apart, ready or not, the world stopped. Suddenly coping mechanisms took over – one’s wiring working to make sense of days without routine, without regular access, without a real sense of timing of ‘for how long?’. The ‘new normal’ was in fact a ‘now normal’ until the ‘next normal’ came along. Facts vs fears. Connection vs isolation. COVID19 vs the world.
100+ days on, slooooowwwwly the world is starting to open up, restrictions easing, living the ‘next normal’ getting easier as rules, regulations and routines are more familiar. Comfort in the discomfort zone.
But wait. Not so fast.
As much as we are focusing our fearful yet hopeful hearts and minds on leaving these times behind us, let’s not rush out just yet. Why? Because there will be moments in these times that, unquestionably, we will miss. Moments of stillness, of newness, of awareness, we will miss. And critically, moments for which we must always remain grateful.
For this reason, not wanting to let this birthday pass in a blur, a pause took place to think: from these 100+ COVID19 days, what are my 19 moments/memories/milestones of pure, unedited, undeniable appreciation.
What will I forever remember this time by?
These, without hesitation and filter, are my 19 COVID19 birthday candles:
Heroes, first and foremost, standing on the front line taking care of what is most important: our health, our safety, our stability
Health….mine still strong, still safe…and that of family, both family by blood and family by choice
Satellites, keeping us connected, every second, every day, every conversation, every virtual hug
AM2AM, every a.m. to p.m.
My gorgeous AM&A Girls – Jessica & Grace
My Clients, acronyms so adored across the world, across the alphabet, across an array of challenges and emotions we never thought we would share
Springtime – its rhythm, its hope, its softness & freshness
Foxes spotted running through central London, because they can
Swans, squirrels and other feathery and fluffy sweeties
For these 19 (+1) am I thankful, deeply, deeply thankful.
Before any more time passes, please take the time to pause. Capture the 19 signatures of this time that a year, 5 years, 10 years from now, you will look back on with a quiet smile.
Do it now, while memories are fresh, hearts are open, before the world reopens….
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We live in a world without smiles. At least in 2020.
Just 10 days ago the world watched in absolute horror as the Port of Beirut was shaken to the ground – the hopes and lives of the people of Beirut, and across Lebanon, altered irreversibly.
As our world works through the Summer of 2020 in the Northern hemisphere and Southern hemisphere winter sets in, we find ourselves locked into a year focused on 