Six feet. About the size of the couch that you may be sitting on as you read this. It’s really not that far. Why is it then, that over the last few months, six feet has often felt a little more like six miles?
By now, we all know the guideline – stay at least six feet away from other people for the best chance of mitigating the spread of COVID-19. In theory, it makes sense. Maintaining a distance of at least six feet from others will help to limit our opportunities of coming into contact with those that might be infected with the disease or spreading the virus to others.
So, yes, there is no doubt that this six-foot guideline keeps us safe during these uncertain times. At the same time, this guideline has impacted our personal lives in ways that are still hard to fathom. Six feet – we’ve all seen the stories and videos about family members visiting loved ones at nursing homes only to have that conversation take place through a glass window via a phone call. Six feet – we’ve all been craving the connection that comes from sitting around a table with friends at a restaurant. Six feet – we are all yearning for simple hugs from those family and friends that mean the world to us. Just six feet…that’s all.
Technology that allows us to jump on a FaceTime call with a friend or join a virtual family reunion via video conferencing tools has been a blessing over the last few months. Really, what would we do without it. However, even as awesome as that technology is, it really doesn’t enable the real and tangible connections that we have when sitting across the table from a friend at lunch or playing a board game with family members that we don’t get to see every day. As humans, we are wired for connection. We need it. It’s literally in our DNA – its as strong as our need for food, water, shelter and warmth.
So, given that, we might ask ourselves – can we be grateful for a guideline that literally pulls us all away from each other physically, despite our physiological pre-disposed need for connectivity? While it might seem counterintuitive to say that we should be grateful for our current circumstances, perhaps we should be thankful for those six feet at the moment.
Most importantly, they keep us, and others, safe as we navigate this pandemic. Further, for so many, those six feet have been somewhat of an eye opener for us. They have allowed us to focus our attention on those everyday things that we all too often take for granted. They have reminded us of the beautiful and ordinary things that we have in our lives that we might not have thought twice about even just a few short months ago. They have reminded us about the small things – the things that, in reality, are the big things in our lives. For that, we should be grateful.
As some of the restrictions start to ease over the coming months, those six feet have allowed us to approach the opportunities for connection with a whole new mindset. Because of this perspective, we can look forward, with anticipation, to the conversation with our parents on their porch. We can more genuinely appreciate the upcoming family birthday parties that will be filled with joy and laughter. We can be grateful for the chance to sit in the stands watching a baseball game with a grandparent. We can more deeply appreciate the love from a friend that comes through a simple hug.
There is a song that was recently released by Luke Combs called “Six Feet Apart”. The song closes with the words “There will be light after dark, someday when we aren’t six feet apart”. That day will come. There will be light after the dark. While these have been unprecedented times, the lessons we have learned along the way, by those six little feet, are lessons that we can always remember with a deep sense of gratitude.
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Mike Good, creator of The Gratitude Spark, resides in Chaska, MN. He is passionate about living life through the lens of gratitude and helping individuals and organizations spark incredible positive change through the power of a grateful mindset. If you’re interested in learning more about the power of gratitude and how it can help to spark a change in your life and in the lives of those around you, feel free to contact Mike via email at mike@thegratitudespark.com. You can also check us out online at www.TheGratitudeSpark.com on Instagram at @thegratitudespark or join our Facebook community called the “The Gratitude Spark“.