17 September 2016- history always repeats

I nearly didn't post this, but it was cathartic to write as i feel I've been here before and I really can't believe some of the things I see and hear. I may delete it, but I've spent an hour plus so for now...

My thought today is take a deep breath. Kiwis your life has changed. Probably irrevocably. Adjust. We aren't going back. Just find a Zen state and be mindful of what is happening.

First a disclaimer. I was crap at dealing with the Christchurch/Canterbury earthquakes. I fought the change and the loss. One thing I did learn though finally, was I had to learn to do less. There was an initial urge to pretend nothing had happened, do more to overcome changes and the unavailability of people, venues and time. I didn't accept the change and cut the cloth to match the situation. 

Rather than accepting travel was difficult and take longer I tried to ignore it and pretend no disaster had happened.

It took me back to my service in Sri Lanka, where I fought things until I finally had to just aim to do one thing a day. (Due to heat, travel issues, technology, dust, the people there). Anything more was setting up failure and stress. And I got good at that then.

And now?

What I saw in Chch : Stressing to do things while ignoring what is happening and our adjustment to living under threat and with change, is taking an advance on well being that has to be paid back later. This is where the upset, anger, mental health, substance abuse, violence and family meltdowns started. Not the events but how we reacted.

Wellington imo needs to realise what's happened and slow down, pick what's important and simplify, taking time to acclimatise to our new world.

Important is health and safety, the work of our awesome fire service, health, police and rescue workers and everyone's wellbeing. 
Unimportant is Continuing with all pre quake projects and workstreams and trying to catch up the lost week which is dumb.

Acceptance.
Rushing as fast as possible to do 'work' is not accepting. Moving back into all offices RIGHT NOW, given streets are broken, public transport disrupted and staff adjusting is also dumb. Move back in good time, or let people change how they work. We haven't had a major loss of life and a Kaikoura event in Wellington but need to think and prepare so we don't. Things have changed. We now live with imminent quakes not hypothetical ones.

We've had a disaster which impacts on people's energy and psyches as well as offices and carparks and we have ongoing and continuing seismic issues.

There will be more earthquakes, there will be continuing injury, health, building and transport issues. This will happen. There is already upset and panic, this will intensify. We have to focus on what is important managing this, and continued safety, not achieving the work programme we had before. They might coincide if we take time to work smarter - (rather than quicker and in spite of our situation).

I'd personally think from what I hear the number of urgent BAU issues and pre quake cabinet papers public servants are running around to complete needs to be examined. Our customers want sustainable quality outputs. Not rushed stressed half baked solutions from stressed staff in crisis.

Likewise those urgent restructurings.

And those vital performance reviews and reports and other things we do.  

There are important things we do. They go to the top of the list. And right now one of these is to accept the world has changed. This is life. This is reality.
My wish is we learn from 2010-15. We benefit from the insurance rebuild injustices, and the bad treatment of schools and communities. We learn to accept what has happened and we look after each other and our communities. We accept what we can't change, change what we can and are discerning about what we focus on.