Wearing a mask in a grocery store is a small sacrifice. Eliminating all physical proximity with other humans for months or years is very much not.
I think it goes against my internal belief of what being a good person is.
Those friends you're sometimes visiting, after which you beat yourself up for being selfish? Probably many of them are suffering quietly, and seeing you gives them the strength to get through the day.
Agreed. That is excessive and is not what I'm doing. I meet with friends roughly two out of three weekends, and I see my girlfriend every weekend (can't really see her more than that, she's working 15 hours per day during the week). But I'm not going to boardgaming meetups, to museums, to the gym, out to eat or to the cinema, which are things I would do three to five times per week on normal circumstances. I'm basically avoiding all activities where I would be in contact with strangers for more than a few minutes.
> Those friends you're sometimes visiting, after which you beat yourself up for being selfish? Probably many of them are suffering quietly, and seeing you gives them the strength to get through the day.
Thanks, that's nice to think about.
I still feel very uneasy about it though. We don't know the long term effects of COVID. I worry that I could be contributing to something terrible. It's not just the direct chance of me getting someone sick, there's also the fact that each person that goes out sends the message that going out is fine. Which maybe it is? But it seem that if everyone did small sacrifices could help a lot, so it would be wrong not to personally do these sacrifices.
In the prisoners' dilemma that we all find ourselves in, I really don't want to be the defector. And it bothers me that so many people are willing to be. I think it goes against my internal belief of what being a good person is.