Let’s replace “social distance” with “physical distance and social closeness.”
Adam Gazzaley, a Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at UCSF, made a great point about replacing “social distance” with the more accurate “physical distance” as our go to term for our efforts to flatten the Coronavirus curve.
At a time when feelings of loneliness and a lack of community have spiked – especially among the elderly – we need to combine physical distance with social closeness more than ever before.
What this means for us: make the time to give friends who’re working by themselves a call from time to time, send a quick check in text to anyone who crosses our mind, send lots of positive notes to our teams, and over communicate.
In times like this, all of us have plenty of reasons to be wrapped up in our own problems. So, it is also okay if we don’t have the time. But, perhaps, every time we hear the word “social distance,” we can begin to flip that to “physical distance and social closeness” in our mind.
Powerful things happen when we change language.
