In the last month, Alex has started at a new school. We didn’t expect to move you into a new spot so soon after returning to school, but as parents we know that we can’t control other people, only ourselves.

Surprisingly, that’s not an easy thing to keep in mind. It’s especially hard in our current cultural climate.

Let me explain.

Right now, we’re surrounded by the germs. Yes, still those germs. The ones I wrote about 18 months ago. I’ve been surrounded of late by sick colleagues and inured students and a lingering sense that it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.

Alex’s school was non-plussed, and unwilling to admit that they might be wrong about how they handle it. This made your mom quite upset. What made me frustrated was the blithe assumption that they couldn’t possibly be wrong.

The teachers at Alex’s school aren’t alone. The thoughts are echoed every where, especially in the sports world.

A top basketball player (who attended one of the country’s best colleges, Duke) refuses to be vaccinated. Same with an elite quarterback (who also attended a great school, Cal-Berkley), he frankly gets extra credit awfulness for working in a bag-full of lies about it in interviews. Soccer players around the world are no different, but there doesn’t seem to be many on our favorite teams (it’s not clear if cases in Minnesota and Ross County broke through the vaccine’s barriers or just the regular shoddy defense of both sides).

After 18 months of these germs, many, many, MANY of us are tired. Your mom and I made the choice to do whatever we could to protect you two. After all, you couldn’t get a vaccine. You couldn’t control who came around you, so we opted to do what we could: staying home, getting vaccinated, masking 99% of the places we go (grandma and grandpa do the same, which is why we feel safe being unmasked there).

The Liverpool coach, and human Gummi Bear, Jurgen Klopp said it extremely well:

“I don’t take the vaccination only to protect me, I take the vaccination to protect all the people around me. I don’t understand why that is a limitation of freedom because, if it is, then not being allowed to drink and drive is a limitation of freedom as well. I got the vaccination because I was concerned about myself but even more so about everybody around me.

Jurgen Klopp (as reported in The Guardian)

But there’s one thing I can’t bring myself to do. I find that I can’t be mad at them. I can’t summon the anger or bitterness that I hear from my colleagues or my friends.

I can’t do it because I recognize that this moment, this assumption of superior knowledge, this misguided belief that running a school or excelling in athletics precludes you from being told what to do by scientific experts is not inherently bad: it’s just an inherent flaw.

Too often we get consumed with a black and white vision of the world. We often lean back on assumptions that people are inherently good , or inherently bad. If we can emphasize that we are all inherently flawed, trying our best, and worth challenging with compassion, I think we will be better able to serve one another and move forward together.

To those who insist on the image of themselves as inherently good, we see an assumption that they couldn’t have caused offense. They could not be misinformed. They must be defending their freedom against group think. Anyone who says otherwise is willfully misunderstanding their positive intent and freedom.

To those who insist on the image of our fellow citizens as inherently bad, we see an assumption that there is always malice lurking in the shadows. There’s a desire to lift up oneself and undercut others no matter the cost. There is cold, callous, and cruel calculations in every action or inaction that takes place. Anyone who says otherwise enables the worst among us.

I know that both of those are false. I know because I have spent too much of my life ping-ponging between the two views about myself. I’ve felt like a saint, nobly martyred on the altar of misunderstandings. I’ve seen myself as a vile worm, disgustingly seeking self gain at the cost of my community.

But it’s not true. I’m neither inherently good nor inherently bad. I am (like you, and your friends, family, teachers, sports heroes, and everyone else) flawed.

My flaws arise everywhere, but especially in short temper, which I know you’ve both seen more often than I would like. But I hope that you can forgive me. I hope that you understand that I try, I fail, I try again. And that you can do the same.

I hope the same for those who stamp their feet in a petulant anti-vaccine streak and those who berate the anti-vaxxers for extending our challenges. We try to do right, we fail, we try again.

Athletes try to do right for themselves. Ignoring the science to endanger teammates and fans by transmitting or catching the disease themselves, they fail. I hope they try again.

Alex’s teachers try do right for themselves and their school. Believing that it’s masks are too much trouble, assuming that the way things are now will remain consistent long into the future is a failure. I hope they try to learn again.

Your mom and I opting to do what we can to protect you feels right. If it becomes a failure, I know we will try again.

I hope that’s the lesson you take.