The carrot has been dangled. May 1st has become the targeted date for many businesses to reopen. That’s fourteen days from today. Are you ready? And by ready, I don’t mean ready to head to your place of employment, get a haircut or mani-pedi, or dine-in at your favorite restaurant. I mean, did you milk the global pause for all it’s worth?

Did you spend quality time with family? Did you engage with nature? Did you find creative ways to work from home and/or help kids with schoolwork? Did you check off items on a to-do list? Did you learn something about yourself that you never knew? Are you making a concerted effort to change—change the way you think, change the way you speak, change the way you live, change the way you engage with your community?

If restrictions do lessen in the coming days, I hope you’ll take time now to reflect on all that’s occurred, not only in the world at-large, but also within your own neck of the woods. Jot down a list of things you’re grateful for, and then make another list of things you intend to implement or do differently in the coming weeks and months. Post these lists where you can see them and refer to them daily. We are humans, creatures of habit, resisters of change. We’ll need reminders so as not to fall back into old habits and routines.

I’ll end with a little bit of a nudge from Karen Lamb:

” A year from now you will wish you had started today.”