What it all comes down to, is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine
Issue: 14 - Small change adds up
Is there anything better than sitting on the ground in an abandoned car park eating Gelato? No. No there isn’t.
That might not have been the case a year ago. A year ago we might have had dreams of distant lands. But yesterday, as I sat in a shaded spot of a car park with a fresh scoop of cookies and cream… I thought, “well this is perfect”.
And I found myself reflecting on just how far we’ve come.
Come with me, let’s walk down memory lane
It’s been exactly 100 days since the UK’s first two patients tested positive for Covid-19.
70 days since the first UK death, 56 days since my husband was sent into mourning as the Premier League was suspended.
It’s been 54 days since our most vulnerable were encouraged to stay at home and phrases like shielding, self-isolating and social-distancing casually slipped into vocab.
53 days ago our Government started their daily address - a sentence I thought would only ever be connected to the wireless and wartime.
Schools were ordered to shut 49 days ago, our pubs quickly followed and it’s been 46 days since the UK officially went into lockdown.
46 days.
And we waited.
We turned Zoom into a verb, banana bread took over Instagram, we declared new heroes.
In two days we will hear the first outline of how restrictions will be lifted.
And we wait.
We wait to hear news on when we might be able to see our friends, our family, to meet new colleagues, to find out if our wedding is safe, to travel further than our local side streets. We wait to restart the treatment that was suspended. We wait to hold those who so desperately need to be held.
100 days —> 46 days —> two days
So today, I drop into your inbox with the most simple message.
We are not where we want to be, but look how far we’ve come.
We are not where we want to be, but look how far we’ve come.
Look. How. Far. We’ve. F*cking. Come.
And that counts for everything
Your house renovation, the business you’re striving to build, that relationship.
You may not be where you want to be, but look how far you’ve come.
You are so far from where you started.
Be proud
Be proud of the steps you’ve taken over the last 100 days, the last 46 days, the steps you will take over the next two.
Be proud of the last year, decade, lifetime.
Be proud that in the face of such catastrophe, we still manage to recognise those soft and silky silver linings. So much so, that only 9% of us want to go back the way life was.
Be proud that we’re appreciating the car park gelato, and we still sit back and look forward.
Have a good bank holiday, y’all
Amber
Every day I’m balancin’
Ps. If you wanna dive into a more detailed chronology of events, I used this and this.
Wanna dive further into that stat?
Yep - Only 9% of Brits want to go back to how things were. The air feels cleaner, we’re enjoying a stronger sense of community, food and cooking is holding a higher value. And as 39% of people report spending more time with family and friends, we’re not so socially distant after all.
Pod of the week
Balpro is all about corporate culture, the latest Work Life podcast with Adam Grant dives into the fall of WeWork’s culture with such delicious narrative that just writing this line makes me salivate a little.
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