Naomi Bromberg Bar-Yam
17 August 2020

What is the hardest thing you’ve ever done? I work in the area of maternal and child health. People often tell me that birthing their babies, breastfeeding them, being a parent is the hardest thing they’ve ever done. For many who have suffered serious illness or injury, their long road to recovery is the hardest thing they’ve ever done. Sometimes this is true for their loved ones as well.

What is the hardest thing your community has ever done? Feel free to define community broadly.  I am not an athlete, but athletes I know have described the hard work, frustration, discouragement, injuries, pride and utter joy that are all part of a winning season. Sometimes it takes more than one season to get there. The work, frustration and discouragement are worse and the ultimate joy is even sweeter.

I am not an actor or a musician, but I have friends and family members who are. I have seen the hard work, cooperation, multiple, sometimes conflicting, visions that come together one read through, one rehearsal at a time to a stellar production or performance. I have seen the struggle, the tears, the pride that only come when a company of actors, a band, chorus or orchestra comes together, works hard, fumbles, and keeps going until they get it right.

Has any of these things happened to you?

Accomplishing hard things brings wellness and enormous personal and community satisfaction at having achieved together something big, something important, something hard. These things only come when it’s been hard.

Our parents and grandparents faced and overcame national hardships with collective hard work, sacrifice, and struggle. Wars, the Depression and other large scale economic downturns. Racism is an ongoing struggle that can only be solved together, and is taking much effort, disagreement and persistence to enjoy the sweetness and pride that overcoming it will bring.

COVID 19 is a national, even global, hardship that can only be solved when we work together with dedication and discipline. As individuals and communities, we have been learning, working, learning some more, making mistakes, and trying again. In our first season together against this formidable opponent we have had some success, in some areas, outright failure in others.   

It is possible to rid ourselves of COVID. It will be hard. It will require intense limitation of activities and movement for a couple of months – shorter time in areas that have already almost rid themselves of COVID - and then ongoing, but much lower level vigilance for a time. We must commit to this common goal, make mistakes, learn from one another, try again and succeed.

It feels like we’ve been doing this for months and we’re still losing. Now is the time to come together as a team, use what we know and go for the win, the championship.

This is hard. We are champions. We can do this.