Someone recently asked “what is your biggest fear of the Coronavirus quarantine experience we all are going through right now”. One by one I listened to my friends answer the question first, each of them highly accomplished leaders, CEO’s, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives. There were those concerned over the lasting effects on our local industry, some who felt responsibility for others as a business owner and concerns over choices they are making for their families. Without a doubt the most notable fear all shared was that normal won’t come back anytime soon.

My fear is that it will.

I am a CEO in the hospitality industry. I am fighting every day to return our operations to some new normal. To get back to work, to get everyone back to work, to help our guests feel safe traveling again. And yet how can we take something from this experience that lasts forever?

I listened to the same people explain beforehand what they would keep and what they are ready to let go from this experience. Each of them wanted to keep the connection with their families, the permission this pandemic has given them to slow down, to connect. They all wanted to keep the new routines they’ve found, free from the hectic world they used to live in. They were ready to let go of fear, to let go of schedules that controlled their lives to let go of what they could not control.

I am too.

I am ready to let go of plans, to let go of “have to”, to let go of the illusion that 3 months ago I had any more control than I do today. I too want to get back to “normal” just not the normal that allowed me to walk through some of life’s more precious moments just to rush to the next. Not the normal that had so much noise all around me I could absolve to not feel. Not the normal that prevented me from the creativity and possibility of a day.

The new normal.

~written by one of our founders~