The thing that I’m recommending for a lot of people now is to find a sphere of activity, no matter how small or how local, that you feel you can control and you can do at home and you can contribute to.
This feeling of powerlessness may set in that will cause people to panic more or become too depressed or just make them much less productive, or spread to their families, or maybe cause them to go out and want to get drunk and become a spreader [of Covid-19] in some manner…
So really to think long and hard… I’m not really counselling stoicism, I’m counselling a kind of action, something you can do. And even if it ends up only being a placebo, you will feel more in control and of course there’s a chance that it will pay off and have some benefits.
Tyler Cowen – with Russ Roberts, Econtalk Special on Covid-19*
This is good advice at any time, and especially now.
What’s your project? What are you learning? What are you doing?
*The episode as a whole is worth a listen for an economist’s-eye-view of Covid-19