TO say that we are in uncharted territory would be an understatement 
as we all try and get our heads around where we are at and what will 
happen from here.

I said here last week that I expected sport to take a backseat for a
while but as the days roll on it could be quite some time before life
in general can resume, let alone sport.

No one, and I include the government in this, has any idea of where we
are going or what best to do next. Here in the Republic we closed
schools last Friday and on Saturday night we closed our own bar, Teach
Mhicí, until further notice.

There are no rulebooks or playbooks to follow on this, we have to just
play it as we see it and hope for the very best.

When the virus broke out in China in December, we did what we do with
most things until it comes to our own doorstep – we kept one eye on it
but at the same time we had the opinion that it can’t be that bad.
Now that it’s here it’s extremely important that we do what we can
while we can.

All GAA activity was banned on Friday and we must commend the GAA for
taking swift action on this and leading the way. The hope now is that
teams and, especially county teams, stick to the rules.

Teams may be tempted to try and gather even in small groups to try and
keep momentum going and to be ahead of the posse if and when things
return to normal.

My advice to those teams would be to catch yourselves on. I never
thought I’d say this but at this point who actually gives a damn about
who wins Sam Maguire this year? We have more important things to worry
about.

In every situation no matter how dull and bleak it is, we must try and
take something positive from it. With this lockdown we have the
opportunity to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, but we also
have the opportunity to reset our own lives.

This week work, sport, hobbies, deadlines, timetables were all rolled
up and thrown in the bin. All of a sudden all of those things that we
thought were important disappeared and our lives became very simple
and very basic again.

Jobs, money, bills, holidays, plans – the whole lot now means very
little and the old saying “your health is your wealth” now screams
loudly. We were stopped in our tracks and made to take stock of our
lives and what we were doing with our time.

Now that the emphasis is just on living and surviving we have the
perfect opportunity to reset, fix our lives focus on what is important
from here on in. Parents this week will have spent more time with
their children than ever before because before this we would have been
all too busy chasing the dream and not actually living in the moment.

A lot of us might have been worrying about financial issues and when
you peel it back to this, is it really that important?

With all pubs and clubs forced to close can we use this time to reset
our habits and look at how we are socialising? If our lives are in
need of change then use this time to do so.

Something like this has never happened during our time on this earth
so do what we can to learn from it. Rebuild this bridges that you may
have burned, change as a person if you need to, focus your energies on
what is important to you.

If you have made a mistake park it, learn from it, and move on. We all
make mistakes. No one is perfect so use this time and opportunity to
change what you must.

Never again will we have so much time on our hands to reflect and self
evaluate so use this time wisely.

Obviously things are extremely serious and we will have to weather
this storm together but by staying positive and helping each other
hopefully we can defeat anything.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.
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