We have a bunch of planets in our solar system that revolve at their own speed and their own trajectory around the sun and they all get along nicely. Some planets are big and gassy (we’re looking at you Jupiter and Saturn) and some are small and rocky (Mercury and Venus, raise your hands.) What you might not realize is that, for the most part, the further away they are from the sun the bigger and gassier they are. The ones close to the sun are small and hard. The sun’s has burned away all the gas and only left the rock. (Earth is the perfect balance of rock and gas, so we’re good. Science is awesome.)

I think that up until last year, we might have been functioning as big gassy planets. We spun around on our little axis and rotated around the sun at the distance we were comfortable with. Then COVID happened and the sun got hotter. All the planets got a lot hotter too. All the gas was burned away. We are all now smaller, rockier, and built for speed.

What burned away about your life? What fog were you in that you no longer are? We were reduced to basic necessities in life, and that was bad in lots of ways, but good in some others. We appreciated what we had, missed what we didn’t, and looked forward to the day we would get it all back.

Now that things are starting the loosen up, we get to build our lives back up. Do we put everything back that way it was, or do we take what we’ve learned and make some changes? There was some good that came from our very small quiet lives. Or do we leave it all behind and embrace what we had again with a renewed appreciation?

We can go back to being happy and gassy, or we can live with the stripped down model. The choice is ours.