Have We Found Our Better Selves? (What We Can Learn from Covid 19) – Meril R. Smith | Reviewed by:  Lisa Brown, Hollywood Book Reviews

Providing a thoughtful look into the era of Covid 19, author Meril R. Smith offers, Have We Found Our Better Selves? a work which delves into Covid 19 and its overall effect on society. Explored through eyewitness vignettes and personal experiences, this work does well to present the answer to the societal bouncing back from the pandemic into a new normal, and are we the better for it?

Narratively, this work generally provides a look through the multifaceted lens of Covid’s overall effect on society, particularly the economic, emotional, as well as social reverberations with which society is still continuing to experience and will do so well into the future with the advent of new outbreaks continuing to occur.

Overall, the book delves into multiple aspects of Covid, and the life changes people were forced to make, while quarantining, for survival. Firstly, author Meril R. Smith provides a succinct but brief view of pandemic history with Surviving a pandemic which dives into pandemic history, since there have been quite a few deadly pandemics. However, few have led to the experience of the world going into a “lock down” or a “sheltering in place” nor a forced alienation of people, from family, friends, and coworkers, like the advent of Covid 19. In particular, he juxtaposes the 1918 pandemic and the measures taken then for survival as well as looking at the measures taken during Covid 19.

Next, Families Growing Together, brings into focus the various personal experiences of families acclimating to their drastically changed lives, expressed through vignettes as well as included pictures and life lessons learned through the experiences of the changes made. Followed by a section entitled Compassion Empathy and Helping Others which explores stories of the many efforts made to help others maintain a sense of stability while acclimating to an isolated life. The stories in this section, examines the many ways in which people, (both adults and teenagers) looked to help others as well as themselves survive during the height of quarantining. This was a great section, also replete with useful ideas and activities.

Additionally, although the book does well in delving into the personal changes and concessions everyone had to make during the height of isolation, there is a section that expresses a resounding “Thank You” to the essential workers; this happens to be my favorite section, as I personally know many essential workers and they all deserve a debt of gratitude always. While there are those people, even animals who were lucky to survive, their lives have been indelibly altered, there were those bright spots, people who stepped up to the plate to help in any way they could – especially in the medical community.

Altogether, I enjoyed Have We Found Our Better Selves (What we can Learn from Covid 19).  It was well organized, insightful and hope filled. Author Meril R. Smith did a wonderful job at exploring a seriously affective event in human history, where the intersection of economic, mental, physical, and spiritual, scars will affect people for generations. But his work also instilled an aspect of hope for the future as he also demonstrated how people came together (although at a distance) to help others. This is definitely one for the personal library.

Source: https://www.hollywoodbookreviews.com/have-we-found-our-better-selves/