Don’t run out of toilet paper
?I read an expression the other day: 鈥淟ife is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end of the roll, the faster it goes.鈥� If I were writing this two years ago, it would be with a lot deeper fear, but there are always life蘑菇视频 question marks.
?My wife tested positive for COVID today. Of course, everyone is saying, 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry, it will be mild,鈥� and 鈥淭he new strain of COVID is nothing.鈥� She蘑菇视频 strong, but neither of us is in perfect health, and COVID is such a strange and unpredictable disease. Yes, we鈥檝e had shots, but we鈥檝e lost friends and seen others suffer endlessly from this tiresome virus.
?My point is not really about COVID as much as it is about toilet paper. I saw a post the other day about a young man who was terribly missed by his friends and family. A truck hit his motorcycle, and he was killed. Then there was a former neighbor whose family was out for a boat ride when their boat was hit by a drunken driver from another boat, and all but one of the family members were killed.
?That蘑菇视频 a vivid example of the old comedy bit made popular by the now disgraced comedian Bill Cosby, where he jokingly described God in heaven with a deck of cards that had each of our pictures in the deck. In that routine, God would throw out a card and yell, 鈥淛acobs, car wreck.鈥� Or he鈥檇 throw down a card and say, 鈥淣icky, broken arm.鈥�
?We have been wasting way too much time over the last several years dealing with issues that could have been resolved through negotiations and reasonable conversations, but instead, we just keep throwing stones at each other.
?That reminds me of a scientist friend who went cave exploring with a group of other scientists. To their knowledge, the cave they found had never been explored before. They wore hazmat suits, and everything they took in had to be brought back out so as not to disturb the ecosystem of the cave.
?Here蘑菇视频 the crazy part of their journey. Deep into this 100-mile-long cave out West, they found tiny microbes, living creatures that ate stones as their only source of food. But guess what? Those bugs didn鈥檛 get along with each other. They actually threw those stones at each other. So, maybe there蘑菇视频 a DNA thing going on in all of us that makes it natural to not get along. Regardless, we have to find some way to survive together.
?During the Civil War, about 1.5 million Americans killed each other. Of course, that doesn鈥檛 take into account all of the pre- and post-war killings. More recently, partly because we couldn鈥檛 agree on what the appropriate steps were to protect each other from COVID, a million-plus of us have died.
?Now, there are radical people on both sides running for office all over the United States with the same goal, 鈥淭o take our country back.鈥� Take whose country back from whom? It蘑菇视频 not like we鈥檙e not all living here together.
?At least with the last Civil War there were states that disagreed with other states, but now we have counties, cities, communities, and even families that are fighting. Is our next decade going to be like Bosnia, where we kill each other because we鈥檙e not Serbian, or Croatian, or Muslim?
?Come on. We can figure this out. When someone who hates my beliefs attempts to pick a fight, I try to steer them verbally to the things about which we do agree.
?Let蘑菇视频 face it. We鈥檙e all like a roll of toilet paper, and I noticed when my loved ones got very ill, they stopped caring about the things we鈥檙e fighting about now. Don鈥檛 run out of toilet paper before you figure this out.
Nick Jacobs of Windber is a health-care consultant and author of two books.