Staying Calm Is a Civic Duty
Panic and stress are contagious. So is peacefulness.
There will be no shortage of ways to remember 2020, but from our bodies’ collective point of view, the most vivid memory may be one of panic. The sirens, the hand sanitizer, the darting across the sidewalk when someone moved too close. The virus wasn’t the only thing that was contagious this year — our extended state of high anxiety was, too.
But now that the Electoral College has voted, and the vaccine is being administered in the U.S. and U.K., the tenor of life feels slightly different. Calmer.
It would be easy to write this off as mystic nonsense (or at least confirmation bias), but it’s deeper than that. Panic and stress and fear are contagious, but so too are calm and rest and release. A deeper understanding of this dynamic — which has to do with our autonomic nervous systems, and how we evolved to live with and respond to one another in groups — can perhaps help us live more grounded and generous lives. And if some sense of “normal” descends upon life during the next four years, it can also help us find more compassion and support for those who always live life in a hyper-vigilant state.
