Rewards for doing what’s ‘right’ aren’t always personal

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/01/2022 (1515 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s a New Yorker cartoon by Roz Chast I often think of this time of year, when thoughts turn to health and self-improvement.

It features a tombstone, the kind you mind find propped up in a yard during Halloween, that reads: “I can’t believe I ate all that kale for nothing.”

The joke, of course, is that death comes for us all no matter what we do on this side of the ground, which is either deeply nihilistic or a cri de coeur to order the fries, depending on how you look at it.

Our day-to-day behaviours and habits, however, matter quite a lot. Eating all that kale likely wasn’t for nothing; we all know that leafy greens are good for our bodies. Who knows? Maybe eating all that kale helped to postpone the inevitable, especially if eating nutrient-dense food was just one healthy behaviour in a stack of many.

That cartoon — which I’ve now absolutely murdered with analysis — came to mind again during this Omicron-driven spike in COVID-19 cases both in Manitoba and in other regions. It’s a contagious, rapidly spreading variant, which means a lot of people are getting COVID, including people who have been vaccinated — or, in other words, people who have engaged in behaviours that will help protect themselves and others.

People are posting on social about getting COVID, which can be a good thing in terms of breaking the stigma. But the disclosure often comes with a qualifier: “I did everything right…”

It’s a pre-emptive statement, a way to stave off the judgments of people who might jump to conclusions about why or how one got COVID, even though we’re all living through a pandemic in which people are going to get sick and risk is never zero. It’s also a declaration of frustration: you got the vaccine, you masked, you stayed home, you cancelled Christmas… and yet. What gives? The subtext: I can’t believe I did all that for nothing.

Thinking about a virus in terms of punishment (you were “bad” and therefore got sick) and reward (you were “good” and therefore stayed healthy) is problematic because viruses don’t work like that. Getting COVID-19 is not a moral failing any more than getting cancer is. Yes, there are behaviours one can engage in to prevent developing a disease or contracting a virus — quit smoking; get vaccinated — but sometimes people get sick anyway.

That doesn’t mean all is for naught and we should all just give up, or a person “failed” or “lost” because they got sick. It just means that “doing everything right” is not a guarantee.

People are posting on social about getting COVID, which can be a good thing in terms of breaking the stigma. But the disclosure often comes with a qualifier: “I did everything right…”

We see this preoccupation with “doing everything right” elsewhere, especially in an incredibly individualistic society that pushes people to follow rigid paths to “success.” Through a non-pandemic lens, “I did everything right…” might be getting a university degree or getting married or securing stable employment or, sure, eating all that kale — and yet, people still find themselves in debt or unemployed or unfulfilled or unhappy or whatever the “…but I still” ends up being.

A recent episode of the public radio program/podcast This American Life explored this life lesson: that one can follow all the rules, and things still might not work out how one wanted (or expected) them to.

It’s important to note, too, that not everyone can afford to “do everything right.” In the context of the pandemic, this might look like not being able to stay home, or not being able to work remotely, nor not being able to adequately isolate from family members. Thinking further afield, it may look like inequitable access to vaccines.

Personal responsibility is important, but it’s not an end in itself. Imagine how much closer individual behaviours would get to desired outcomes if they were supported and bolstered by institutions, policy and community. (That will be written on my tombstone, by the way; I say it often enough.)

This is true in so many spheres of life, from child care and food security to active transportation and public health. Otherwise, you’re just one person swimming against a tide of high-fructose corn syrup and crude oil.

But taking individual action will never be “for nothing.” Even if you do happen to contract COVID-19, being vaccinated means you are less likely to develop severe illness or end up on a ventilator in an ICU.

Distancing, masking, staying home, reducing contacts — all these actions help protect the most vulnerable members of our community. That’s not nothing, even if you can’t see the ripple effects of your actions. Even if you yourself get sick at some point during a pandemic.

As Winnipeg’s Dr. Jillian Horton recently pointed out in a piece for the Toronto Star, “We can’t see the direct links between those acts of decency and the big disasters we prevent. And so, we miss the fact that we don’t make an immunosuppressed stranger sick because we wear a mask at the drugstore. We end a chain of transmission because we get vaccinated, and so our kid’s school never has to close.”

Living through a pandemic, then, is not about doing “everything right.” It’s about as many of us as possible doing the best we can, as often as we can, for as long as we can — which will always be better than doing nothing at all.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @JenZoratti