John Lennon famously said – “Life is what happens to you, when you are busy making other plans”

The last 2 years of Covid are great examples of how true those words are. And even now, when everyone was feeling that everything is finally back to normal, people started planning for international holidays and get togethers; enter Omicron! Déjà vu of fear, uncertainty and helplessness. It is like trying to hold sand in our fists – the harder we try to save it, the more of it we lose through the cracks.

I am seeing all this as a big evidence of how closely interconnected our lives have become. One individual’s life is linked with millions of others. Your every small plan, decision or action can have repercussions on people across geographies and time horizons. And it has always been like that especially in the industrialised society. It just has become too apparent and immediate in the Covid world.
Think about it, 1 random person, completely unrelated to you and driven completely by his own personal thoughts, decides to travel from South Africa to India. Wait 2 weeks and your awesome holiday trip to the US is now in danger of getting cancelled!
Some random farmer burns some harvested crops in his farm far far away from your home and air becomes deadly for you and your family to breathe in.
You regularly yell at your junior in the office who, since unable to vent anger on his boss, vents it on his family and young kinds at home which causes the kids to underperform in school.

We can’t prevent most of these things from happening. If we can’t see the linkages of the world, we surely can’t be blamed for its results. No one can be expected to have a big picture view of the world throughout the day, all days.
But, what we can do is internalize. Internalize that even though we may be just 1 simple person living an ordinary life in a small corner of the world, we have got infinite leverage through this massive network of interconnections that is our world today. And it is up to us if we want to use that leverage for doing good or doing bad.

In short, good decisions, kind words and thoughtful actions are not just for feeling good or doing good karma, they can have very positive ripple effects that travel geographies and time horizons through connections and links that are beyond understanding.
So, stop planning too much, live what comes your way and be kind.