Technical Difficulties

I have been experiencing difficulties with my laptop for the last several weeks and I’m very frustrated about this fact. I am very attached to this machine as it has given me years of worry-free service; even while using AutoCAD and other complex memory-devouring programs. It has also gotten a big workout since all of my work is being done remotely. So now, at the height of things COVID, I dread making a change. I hold out hope I can manage to keep operating until I get a local tech guru to replace my machine with everything just how I like it.

And then I exhale with gratitude that this is my biggest personal problem right now. It’s not even a real problem. I still have my health, my family’s health, health of my friends and neighbors; for all of which I am extremely grateful. I have made the conscious choice to abide by the recommendations of those experts trying to save our lives during this terrible pandemic. It has been inconvenient, it has been sad and it has been nerve-wracking at times. But fortunately for me, it has not been a real problem to make changes so far. I know I am am extremely fortunate. I can choose when to replace my computer or when to leave the house. I can choose how much risk I would like to introduce into my own existence during these difficult times.

I am struck by the extent to which those of us who have the privilege to choose are oblivious to the fact that by choice we could be depriving others of choice in very harmful ways. Stopping to reflect on that sentence, I recognize this as a perennial human issue – one that is simply in high relief today during a pandemic. Electing to place others at risk or burden them unnecessarily with the consequences of our risky behavior, when we can easily choose not to – is this the product of a different type of ‘technical difficulty?’ This seems like one time where the choice should be obvious – can we not reasonably compute the consequences of our real life decisions in our own heads? Or do we just not care about them? I shudder to think about either possibility being universally true.

Choice, in itself, is a beautiful thing. Choice is a gift and sometimes it is a right. We do not get to choose the responsibility that accompanies such exercise however; we can only choose to abdicate responsibility. The exercise of choice can therefore reveal just whose suffering is acceptable to us when we abdicate responsibility for putting others in peril – directly or indirectly. Perhaps we can reflect on that for a moment…What if we acted as if no one’s suffering (real or anticipated) is acceptable? What if our choices and those of our elected leaders reflected this orientation? What choices can we make today to bring us closer to that reality? What would the next months look and feel like? What gratitude might others express for these choices – would they be grateful for their health and the ability to manage during tough times?

Shouldn’t we all get that choice?