My word: Is there really a right or wrong?

The economic effects of the Covid-19 global pandemic started to take root as soon as the first case of the disease was reported.

Now it seems that the shoots of these effects are sprouting from the ground. We do not know what kind of plant it will grow into. How big will it be? Will it be a useful plant or a weed that needs to be cut down? Will it bear good fruit or poisonous ones?

Just like a farmer does, we just have to wait and see. But is it only when we can start to see what kind of leaves the shoots turn into that we can start to think about what to do?

This morning I received a text from an old friend whose daughter started making flower vases from cement after she lost her job. When I received the pictures of the vases via WhatsApp (complete with flowers in them), I was awed. Who knew her daughter had such talent?

Hers is a good example of someone who has learnt to make lemonade out of lemons (and we’ve seen that hilarious meme with the disappointing juice-less lemons that 2020 gave us).

But it’s not about what we do with what life hands us that is important, but rather how we react when we realise that we got flawed lemons instead of juicy ones.

In uncertain times, when nobody seems to know what to do, it is easy to resign yourself to whatever fate comes your way. But we have learned from history that the successful people either took what life handed them and created something beautiful or completely ignored it and built something totally new from scratch.

There are a few life principles that apply no matter what situation we find ourselves in. With these good old fashioned principles, we can never go wrong. Different people apply them in different ways but the basics are all the same.