One day, there was a man who lived by the river in a small, quiet town who heard a radio report that a big storm was coming at night – that the river would rush up and flood the entire town and that all residents should evacuate their homes before the weather came. 

The man thought to himself, “I’m religious! I pray and God loves me. God will save me.”

The rain started slowly but surely until the water rose up. After a bit, a person in a rowboat came along and shouted to the man, 

“Hey, hey, you, there! The town is flooding! Let me take you to safety!”

The man shouted back to the person in the rowboat, “I’m religious! I pray! God loves me and He will save me!”

After some hours, the water kept rising and a helicopter hovered overhead. A person with a megaphone shouted, “hey, you! The town is flooding! Let me drop this ladder and take you to safety.”

The man shouted back, “I’m religious, I pray! God is going to protect me!”

As the rain continued, the flooding got worse. 

And… the man drowned. 

At the gates of heaven, the man demanded an audience with me. 

“I’m a religious man. I pray everyday! I thought you loved me! Why did this happen?”

“I sent a radio report, a rowboat, a helicopter, what the hell are you doing here?”

The COVID-19 pandemic reached its peak in cases back in early January, but, thanks to mass vaccination here in the US, we are seeing fantastic lows in new cases and deaths since COVID was introduced to the US last January. 

What’s important to remember is that we are STILL NOT DONE! 

According to CDC data, 52.7% of the total American population has at least one shot, and 43.7% of all Americans are fully vaccinated (as of June 2021).

We mustn’t think that the war is entirely over because I certainly want to see the number of deaths from COVID to drop to zero, but this is incredible news. 

What has me worried in this day and age is resistance to getting vaccinated. I don’t have a column on The New York Times nor am I a recurrent special guest on CNN, but one thing that will not change in my posts and talks about vaccinating is that whether you, yes you the reader, chose to vaccinate or not, I will still respect you as a person who wants the best for your family, loved ones, and yourself. 

Case in point, the vaccines are working. The government isn’t spying on us through the vaccines. They thankfully aren’t deadly or dangerous – these vaccines may have taken less than a year but the research behind them has been in the works for years. In fact, because of all the available vaccines, you and I are able to go out and about to see our friends and family members without worrying about hurting someone around us—it’s amazing how close we are socially to pre-pandemic times.

I’ve seen people talk about how God will guide them safely through the pandemic. I humbly share my perspective that maybe these vaccines are God’s version of a radio report, a rowboat, and a helicopter. 

I’m grateful to say I’ve been fully vaccinated for some time now. I assure you this isn’t sponsored propaganda, only something I feel passionate about and something that I believe aligns with Transcend Reality’s mission of sharing meaningful ideas for meaningful progress. 

If these vaccines and future boosters can save my Mom and Dad, grandparents, and all my other family members from contracting the virus from me, you can bet all the money in your bank that I’ll keep getting these shots unless I see widespread evidence it’s dangerous. 

On another point, we often hear phrases about respecting everyone’s opinions, and the topic of opinions is something that fascinates me. Here’s why…

I will always find a reason to respect each person I come across in my life. Even if we believe in the most vastly different things because I will believe in your principles to do good by the things you care about. Whether it be your commitment to your family, your community, the planet, gun rights. If you are willing to fight for what you believe is right, you’ve won some respect in my book. People who also show an open mind and open my mind gain even more respect points.

But to say I respect all the opinions that have ever been created is to allow one more win for all the forces working against humankind. I want to leave you with a small remark from a young man: everybody is obviously capable of creating his or her own opinions, and they definitely hold the right to have one. However, from a purely ethical standpoint, you are only entirely entitled to an opinion within the confines of your head. 

For example, if I decide I want to share my opinion for others to see, I feel like it’s my responsibility to think things through for wide scale betterment. To make sure I hold my opinions in the moral light that they won’t go into the world and intentionally cause any level of pain and suffering in people. 

Similar to the most revolutionary scientists and prominent philosophers, I invested a lot of time when younger thanks to the guidance of my parents to see challenges against my opinions as an exciting moment to grow, advance my thinking, and become a better version of myself.

We are all on the same team here. The team where we ought to look out for each other and get each other’s backs in this historical era. In the end though, everything I talked about in this post are things that help me and guide me as a person. May any of them work for you?