Our lives are made up of choices that we make to the best of our ability, depending on intent. That applies whether we are walking, cycling, driving or heading to another country for a break in the middle of a global pandemic.
We need to balance risk with potential reward, cost with benefit, right with wrong, and so on. Sometimes we take chances; sometimes we make mistakes; sometimes bad decisions come back to bite us.
All of this has to do, of course, with elected officials who went out of the country during the Christmas break.
They considered the upsides and the downsides to the best of their ability and chose to leave. Others looked at the same risks and rewards and stayed at home.
It was perfectly legal to leave, as it was legal to stay, although leaving definitely went against advice from health authorities.
After the toughest year of my career, I would have loved to spend a week at a resort in Mexico. I even checked the prices on one package deal — but I did not book it.
I did not like the COVID-19 risks I would face spending time in airports, on airplanes, and at the resort itself. But there was more to it than that.
What if I caught the virus while there? What sort of medical care might I get? Would they give priority treatment to me, leaving a local person to suffer without care? What right would I have to take medical attention away from a sick person in that city?
What if I carried the virus there? What if I brought it back? Either way, I could pass it to people around me. The virus does not travel on its own; it needs a ride on a warm body. I did not want to give it that body.
I would be fine with a two-week quarantine on my return; as long as I have an internet connection I could still work. If you don’t have a plan for your quarantine, you will be assigned to a hotel in Vancouver — but it takes about five minutes to come up with a plan. I know because I set one up for a relative returning after eight months away.
But what if the pandemic got much worse when I was away, causing flight cancellations and leaving me stranded somewhere? Then all plans would go out the window.
Considering all of those factors, I decided it would be highly irresponsible to head off.
One of my cousins has a condo in Hawaii, and a friend in Europe has one in Spain. If I want to use either one, all I have to do is ask. I have elderly relatives in Skagit County I would love to see again. I am sure I could find ways around the advisories and rules to make a trip happen. But finding a way to do it would not make it right.
It’s OK to dream about a vacation, and even to book it, because dreaming of better times might help us cope with the pandemic restrictions. It would be wrong, however, to actually go.
A small mistake is a bad decision made on the spur of the moment, like jaywalking or running a red light. It is much more serious when, given time to consider the consequences, you put yourself, and others, at a real health risk. That’s more than a mistake; that is a failure to understand the fundamental difference between right and wrong.
To describe an international trip in the middle of a pandemic as a mistake, or to say “in hindsight, it was the wrong decision,” is an attempt to trivialize a thoroughly bad move.
Elected officials need to understand that the decisions they make in their personal lives reflect their sense of responsibility, and their ability to see possible consequences.
Should we trust people who put their own interests ahead of the obvious wishes of those they represent — the ones who have, in the name of the collective good, made the sacrifices asked of them by health authorities?
Many people are calling for jetsetting politicians to resign. Others argue that the happy wanderers should stay in their elected roles because their travels were not that bad, and no laws were broken. Besides, byelections cost money.
But I don’t think that shattered trust can be glued back together that easily.
Our lives are made up of personal choices, and we are judged on the choices we make. Let’s hope the jetsetters among our elected officials have figured that out.
