Not for all of us, Colin. Many of us are very proactive, engaged, positive, focused, and working. While I can most certainly understand your feelings, I am not sure that the tone of your piece is helpful. Kindly, that’s just me, and it’s not intended as criticism, but more so as a question.

As writers, while I absolutely believe it’s our responsibility to provide information and insight. I also believe it’s even more important to provide ideas, proactive actions that we can take, and ways of thinking and seeing that allow us to feel more in control of our fears. That’s not how I felt reading this.

Of course there’s time. We all have time. Believing anything else is just going to make folks feel more fearful, want to hoard more, and do monumentally foolish things that are neither good for themselves nor for others.

I might ask if you would consider penning pieces- that focus on what we can do (and kindly, there’s plenty) as opposed to emphasizing a state of victimhood. We are not victims unless we want to be, for that is a state of mind.

Of course it’s hard. Of course it’s difficult. If it were easy the shelves wouldn’t be stripped. However there are millions of people working incredibly hard not only to restock those shelves but also to find answers.

I can’t speak for you. Only for myself, and for those of my readers who respond to the pieces I write about understanding massive change and transition, and what you and I can do about it. There really is a great deal.

We can be deer in the headlights, or we can get busy, make difference, find ideas and answers, reach out, volunteer, make ourselves useful. As a military veteran my first instinct is for the larger good, and my responsibility to it.

Again, Colin, this is a respectful request. I do NOT believe in fooling people into believing all is well. It isn’t. But making things worse by emphasizing how terrorized we are, or need to be, also isn’t helpful. There are places which are already past the peak and beginning to recover. For my part, and I’m an optimist, I believe that we all gain when we find ways to share positive information, share tips and ideas which assist people, and focus on how we move through a tough time.

For my money, it takes a lot more courage to focus on help rather than to emphasize helplessness. Again, that’s just me. We will get through this, Colin. How we get through it speaks to our collective character. I’m no Pollyanna but I refuse to emphasize reasons to feel fear or hopelessness or angst. There are too many reasons to feel just the opposite. You’re an excellent writer, and I would love to see what you can do to add a different kind of value. For what it’s worth.