As the effects of the global pandemic have continued and worsened, I’ve advocated for improving our ability to handle change. There's a simple technique that can make it easier to get started: ask yourself, “how can I look at this differently?”

With the epidemic, maybe it’s… I get to spend more time with my family… yea we want to kill each other sometimes, but this is also giving us a chance to work out our differences and problems, to be more honest with each other, to truly know each other better.

People are dying; estimates as of yesterday are 300,000 people worldwide… but at least Covid-19 isn't as fatal as other diseases in the recent past like SARS or Ebola… it’s not necessarily a death sentence, like so many other infections throughout history.

What’s more, this outbreak is teaching us how to deal with outbreaks as a global society, as a species. Yes we’ve made a lot of mistakes, our leaders have made a lot of mistakes… this gives us indications of the problems within our governments, which we can now work on improving. It gives us new criteria with which to choose our leaders in the future. It helps potential future leaders better understand what to expect.

This disease could have been like the Black Death, which killed a third of the world’s population, but it’s not even close to that…it’s a reminder of how far we’ve come. Because of the curiosity and hard work of scientists over centuries, we understand germs enough and were able to react more quickly and effectively by implementing social distancing measures across the globe. We are able to enact policies that have actually saved people… and “ordinary" people actually understand most of it.

Nations are working together to solve the incredible problems we are currently facing, which will set the stage for inevitable future crises, especially the climate crisis. This widespread cooperation has never been seen before on an international scale, and it will lead to the fastest vaccine ever developed.

People are losing jobs all around the world, but we’re also learning the pitfalls of our economies… we’re learning many jobs can be done remotely, even performed more effectively and efficiently remotely… we’re learning the value of actually meeting in a room with coworkers when everyone’s aligned on something… and we’re learning what ‘essential workers’ really are.

We're getting a taste, just a small taste, of the hardships previous generations have suffered when experiencing much worse… the Cambodian genocide, the Spanish Flu, The Great Chinese Famine, North Korea’s totalitarian regime, World War II, the Rwandan genocide… the list could go on. And you know what? That long list of things… rarely do those sorts of things happen anymore… Wealth has increased all around the world, education has improved, equality has improved… this coronavirus pandemic is teaching us that we have come a long, long way.

And there’s still much further. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t it encouraging? We’re not at the top of the hill yet, not by a long shot. But because of our intelligence, curiosity, institutions, determination, and lessons learned, we can see the top. Let’s get there.