I am Diego L., 24 years old, and aspiring to religious life. I am in vocational discernment and currently, I work as an administrator of a business of agricultural inputs. I live in Matanza – Santander, Colombia.

“Man is a sociable being by nature” and that is why it is so easy for us to relate to other people, some more extraordinary than others, at parties, family and friend integrations, religious and political events, among other activities that help us strengthen our social life.

As for the economy, many people live from their jobs in companies that offer them the opportunity to work there, others live as freelancers who earn their livelihood and that of their families.

Before facing the crisis caused worldwide by the COVID-19 pandemic, although we led a fairly active social life, selfishness, indifference to the evil of others did not cease to exist. There has always been a race to monopolize everything to benefit a few; those who had the most wanted the most, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Now that we have been touched by COVID-19, our social and economic life has been affected. We distance ourselves from other people for our personal and community protection, we maintain the mandatory preventive isolation established by the government, although many have not yet become aware of what is happening not only in our country but globally. Some people leave because they need to obtain their support (food, money), others leave only because they want to oppose and challenge the authorities. There is no lack of people who have left their comfort zone to share with the persons who need, to share the little or much that is in their hearts and their homes.

There was no lack of greedy companies that instead of contributing their grain of sand to help overcome this crisis altogether, the only thing they did was raise the prices of the basic products of the family basket. And there are companies that abandoned their employees, leaving them without work or they have withheld their wages for longer than normal. There are also companies that raised the cost of agricultural inputs, making it difficult for the farmer to carry out production to supply large cities.

There are also those who took advantage of the peasants, paying for their products at very low prices when they sold them to consumers at a higher cost. We still have a long way to go to be more human and less indifferent, more in solidarity with those who need it.

This crisis is an opportunity for us as people to become aware that we all need everyone, that we do not own this world but on the contrary. We are only administrators of it and therefore we have to take care of each other, we are not immortal but we must live each day as if it were the last of our lives.