Skip to content

Finding human harmony

Change is happening, change is upon us
21776424_web1_2006-11-NTS-OpEdGlennMandziuk-mug_1
Glenn Mandziuk, President and CEO of TOTA

If we cannot get the human factor handled correctly the end result will be inevitable and no one will be the better for it.

We are living through an interesting and most unusual moment in the world’s history. As we begin to reopen our economy and open our world, some of us are very ready to get back to work and back to a version of normal, while others are anxious and worried about reconnecting, concerned for their personal safety and there is every spectrum of those two opinions in between.

This week layered onto an already broken world the issues of discrimination have erupted globally.

We are watching as community after community takes to the street, some in peaceful demonstrations and others escalating into riotous behaviors, social disobedience, destruction, and divisiveness.

This outpouring of grief and anger, cannot be concealed as the actions taken against one person but is quite clearly the result of a history of inequalities that can no longer be suppressed or contained.

Change is happening, change is upon us.

We are changing how we move forward in our day to day lives, how we interact with our friends and neighbors, how we explore the world, and how we learn to live in harmony. Harmony with the land, harmony with the animals, harmony with the environment. But the first and most important step is to achieve harmony with each other, acceptance of each other, love for each other no matter our race, religion, or other personal differences.

If we cannot get the human factor handled correctly the end result will be inevitable and no one will be the better for it.

COVID-19 has proven our fragility, it has heightened our awareness of our inability to control the future and the importance of focusing on the immediate.

We need to take the positive outcomes and behaviors that we started to see during the virus; people helping people; reaching out to strangers, focusing on kindness, working together, and transfer this learning and behaviors into all we do.

Glenn Mandziuk, is President and CEO of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) in British Columbia, Canada.