Not so much a Monday Motivation post today, but a reminder to everyone to remain positive after the shameful events of the weekend in NSW.
Please remember your why, and respect others rights to safety and security. Your why is what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning. Your mission. Your purpose. It might be your business. It might be your kids, your spouse. It might be a burning desire to be better than yesterday. Its so important to know your why, and remember it. It will help you get through tough times.
I have chosen to #staysafe, #stayhome, and #getvaccinated. It is hard. I am able to work remotely at 80% of normal capacity, and so can my staff. Does that make me lucky? I worked very hard last year to make this possible, at my businesses expense. My staff juggle work and home life, to provide a vital service to others. They are working crazy hours. Would they prefer not to work and collect a social security payment? Never even thought to ask. I think they do what they do out of passion and a mission to help others.
I could go to my office because its empty, but I chose not to. Why? Because I don’t want to bring a potentially deadly disease home to my wife, daughter and newborn. My why.
Do I feel sympathy for businesses that needed to stop trading during this lockdown? Who could not pivot to remote work, or take away, or social distancing methods? All the builders? OF COURSE. Many of my clients are struggling. The conversations I am having hurt. I know many of the families behind these businesses. Often I can only email, not take every call. I’m short. I have template responses pointing to stimulus pages. Its not cold. I feel for you. I’m helping as many as I can as fast as I can. Would I ever tell anyone to go to the protest as a potential solution? Fuck no. Its as far away from a solution as humanly possible. At worst its a super spreader event and we’ll be in lockdown for months. What then. More businesses will fail. More home schooling mums will lose their hair or have to resign from their jobs because the hours are not maintainable. Who do we have to thank for that? Certainly no blame can be cast at those who did the right thing and stayed at home. That only leaves… those flaunting the rules or blatantly ignoring them.
What did the protestors achieve other on the weekend other than potentially bringing home a virus to their families and extending the lockdown they protested against?
Freedom is a construct of the mind. Freedom to work? If your business has no remote aspect, I feel for you. Reduce your costs as much as possible, and get that Government stimulus. There is a safety net there for you. Freedom to visit relatives? Call them. Tell them you love them. The whole world is accessible on your phone.
Stay home. The protestors displayed no courage. The courageous ones are at home, toughing it out, playing their part to keep each other safe and not spread this virus. It takes infinite courage to put others before yourself, even at high cost.
I remember a quote that says that true freedom is the ability to chose what to do with one’s time. In lockdown, in your own home, you are a lot freer than you think. If you’re working at home, you’re not in lockdown. You’re working remotely, without the commute and with the fridge. Welcome to the future. You might actually want to work this way one day. Other countries have successfully implemented remote first, and Australia will one day catch up. If you’re unemployed now, or with reduced hours, or your business is closed temporarily, you have a lot you can do to pass the time. It could be a lot worse. If you business has closed permanently, again, my sympathies, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But we are talking about saving lives. I know you will be able to start your business again. You’ll need willpower, resolve, and a refreshed credit rating.
The freedoms we have all have come to appreciate (Medicare, Centrelink) are provided by the Government that the protestors are protesting against. Will they hand in your Medicare card when they also reject a Vaccine passport?
Of course not, and nor should you. Australia provides for every single Australian. We support each other, through thick and thin. Except for the protestors. I don’t know who they are supporting other than their egos. “We run this city” said one ignoramus protestor on the news.
I understand the financial aspect of lockdowns is terrible. But I didn’t see banners in the crowd saying “The Covid-19 Disaster Payment and/or the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment is not enough”. I apologise if there were. I haven’t watched hours of footage. I’ve only seen police getting pelted with fruits and garbage, and a horse getting an unwelcome nudge. The police and their mounts deserve better.
The ability not to visit our loved ones is terrible. Would you not prefer they be around in a few months time to visit again freely? Take a break for a few weeks, for the sake of your neighbours, your work colleagues, your friends and families. Get Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime, Apple TV Plus, Disney+, Foxtel, Audible,
Since the NSW lockdown started, 8 people have died. that’s a 4 week period. People smarter than me can annualise that Delta Death Rate.
I have been disappointed with the media coverage to date. I’ve seen some disgraceful articles from the Betoota Advocate suggesting that the NSW Government wants the virus to spread for conspiratorial reasons. Economic ruin? Pure evil? Ridiculous notions. I will not give the articles the airtime to share. If you see rubbish, time to unfollow. I call on all media outlets to share facts, and positivity. Overwhelming negativity makes us feel more helpless than we need to be.
Channel 7’s coverage berating our state leaders every morning as failures is becoming tiresome. Have they failed yet? When did we give up on NSW? I haven’t seen a finish line yet to call it. They complain the rules change so often its confusing. Should we not reset the rules every time new information comes to light?
Would we not change any other law if we were better informed. I have made it my business to keep up with the changes daily, so I can help my clients as much as possible. If your only news comes from mates on Facebook or Whatsapp… you will be confused. If you watch the 11am press conference every day , there is no confusion to the message. STAY HOME. Run to the shops, get your stuff, go home. Don’t browse. Wear a mask. All the time. Shop online. THEN STAY HOME.
I’ve also found that this most recent dividend between those who support the protest and those who don’t has given me a chance to clean up my facebook page. My circle of friends collective IQ has jumped significantly.
There have been some really excellent posts. Today’s Instagram from Janine Allis “You have got to be kidding” says everything that I wanted to say that I haven’t said above. Here’s a link. I hope her 50.2k followers share it. A lot.
There’s been some mediocre influencer shares. One famous individual called out the struggles of small business, and then travelled around Sydney instead of staying home and suggested the solution in leadership would be for the pollies to take a paycut. Not sure what that solves, if they are still working full time, and their reduced wages won’t go back into funding stimulus. There are many still working a full time schedule, with no paycut, but more stress and less productivity.
We need real solutions, not complaints for the sake of complaints.
If you’re in a Locked Down LGA, and need to get a test every 3 days to go to work, I feel for you. You are still working. Don’t give up, NSW needs you. We will appreciate the effort you went to to comply with the rules. You really achieved something by complying and working and keeping the economy going.
You might have been annoyed, you might have even been downright angry. But you got on with it. Thank you.
If you cant work, I’m sorry. The sooner we’re out of lockdown, the sooner you can get back to work. See the pattern?
The vaccination program rollout has been very slow. It was not prioritised early because we were doing so well. Australia got complacent. In the rollout from the Government, but also in the urgency in the population to get it.
The confusing message about Astra Zeneca hasn’t helped. I’m 36, and as soon as I could go to my GP to get advice and then get the jab, I did. To protect my family and save some Pfizer for those who need it more. Its the tiny little part I could play.
My GP was so practical and logical, he helped me assessed my risk, and then said we’re all better off vaccinated than not. I wish they gave him 20 minutes on Sunrise for the speech I heard. A lot more AZ jabs would be delivered.
Does anyone remember Steven Bradbury? Running dead last in his race, everyone fell over in front of him and he won Gold. I think that’s Australias analogy for the vaccine rollout. Slow at first, but ramping up really fast. Lets be more positive people, lets get behind it and look forwards.
We can still get the Gold. #getvaccinated people. Please.
I am sure we will get to a point where we need to reopen economies with Delta Strain Covid circulating in the communities. There will be hospitalisations. There will be deaths. Who puts a price on human life. Australia’s policy from day one has been save a human life over economic cost.
Every lockdown decision, 50% of the reaction are people complaining that the lockdown was not hard enough, followed by people complaining about the severity of the lockdown. Its a no-win situation. I used to be a soccer referee, I know the feeling.
We’ve entrusted our business leaders to do the job. Lets let them do it, and lift each other up. They will not make perfect decisions, but they care. Do not mistake a miscalculation or a one day late interpretation of data as a deliberate omission. These are Critical decisions being made with incomplete data, with billions at stake, livelihoods and life. Can you imagine the stress on those decisions? Can you compare that stress to what to order on Saturday night from Deliveroo/UberEats/Menulog because you don’t want to cook or you want to support your local? Cut them some slack. Its a tough gig, and I don’t know why many people would want it.
I am not excusing the mistakes of the past. I’m saying we need to learn from them and look forwards. Constantly harping on whats wrong gets clicks, gets attention, but adds to mental stress and results in unsafe protests and conspiracy theory’s thriving.
The Melbournians were one day out from ending lockdown and they had freedom protests. Why didn’t they delay that protest one day… just to see? Because they didn’t care about a result. They knew they wouldn’t make any significant change. They just wanted 15 minutes of fame without a mask and to wreck the joint.
Some may disagree. You probably attended. To extend the lockdown to have a reason to protest more? do we need to feel oppressed in order to have something to battle? Are we not allowed to just get on with our lives in peace knowing some days will be shit and some will be glorious?
Here is the quote that inspired this blog post. Everyone who protested in NSW on the 24th July did not respect my feelings. They did not appreciate my efforts to stay home when I had many important reasons to go out. They have not listened to any of my phone calls with stressed out clients. They haven’t spent the hours writing summaries, researching, and sending notifications at early mornings and weekends so we had clear direction on a Monday morning. The protesters did not act with others in mind. They put themselves first. I would like to think I’ve been a good citizen during this time, other than being notoriously short and always in a hurry. I don’t feel that the protestors expressed themselves appropriately to deserve the same tag. I have controlled my actions, and followed the health guidelines. Who am I to second guess. Its the shortest way out of lockdown, as explained by those in charge of ending the lockdown. If that’s what it takes, that’s what we should do. In this case, I couldn’t walk away, like crossing the road to avoid the maskless. I could only watch the TV in horror, and try to run some quick maths as to how many cases this could lead to next week. How can we protect ourselves any further when we are already sheltered in our houses? We cant individually. We can collectively. And now, we wait longer. In Lockdown. Does the protestor feel vindicated because we are still locked down? Did that make the protest true if you caused it? I hope it was worth it. I hope you don’t bring the virus home to your entire family.
For all the police out there – Thank you. I especially hope no Police Offers get Covid as a result of having to shut that protest down. They deserve better.
Most of all, I hope those protestors don’t live anywhere near me or my loved ones. I want to visit them all again one day, and not by Zoom.
When you cant walk away, just follow the rules, wear a mask, and hope that our leaders can get a clear message into these peoples heads. Increase the fines. Put them last in the vaccination queue.
Gladys said she was disgusted and her heart broke. Hear Hear. 
In times like these, I find it helpful to remember who you are keeping safe. If you keep your loved ones front of mind, it makes it easier to stay home and get vaccinated. Not easy. Easier. Nothing in life is easy. Money struggles are tough. There is support for you. Lets get through this together, NSW, without the protests.
Remember who is your why. #staysafe #stayhome with them, support each other, #getvaccinated
#mondaymotivaton
