The human spirit is something not easily broken. Or so they say as one word sets off a disaster. Pandemic is defined as “(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world”, but what we hear is panic.
When you take out the middle of the word, three syllables, and you just focus on the beginning and the end, the full story gets lost.
We do this often in our own lives — more than we would like to admit. In a tale of hardship and struggle, would you like to hear about the terrible beginnings someone came from, the arduous journey they went through in the middle, or the glorious end where they triumphed over their circumstances?
Success stories are only worth it if someone started from the bottom and climbed their way to the top. Bottom and top, no middle. The middle is overlooked, much like the child and the syndrome.
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Simply put, a pandemic does not have to induce panic, but it often does. We hear what we want to hear, such as how listening boils down to picking up beginnings and ends and middles normally get tuned out.
When sharing the testimony of one’s own life, we are told: “Good for you. You persevered.” The word is often used in the past or the future tense. Perseverance is defined as “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” We persevered. We will persevere.
But how often do we hear that we are persevering? It’s always about the beginnings and the endings, and yet, here we are, in the middle.
NiNi Banh attends Regis University’s Master of Fine Arts program. She’s from Sugar Land, Texas.