Nearly one year from the economic shut down, I can confidently say that we have learned some good lessons.  Among them is just how SOCIAL we humans really are, and how much we need each other.  Which adds, GRATITUDE for friends, family, associates, fresh air, open spaces and LIFE.  Then there’s FLEXIBILITY and CREATIVITY.  Learning how to adapt and make what worked before work now. Indeed, adversity can bring advantages.  It’s how we look at it.  And that brings me to ATTITUDE.  A positive outlook in stressful and uncertain times can bring more PEACE and CALM.  Which is not always easy to find when you lose your job or your income is severely diminished. I’m thinking about a friend Joe Miceli.  He doesn’t know I’m writing about him, but I think he’s an amazing person.  He owns the world-famous Miceli’s Pasta Pizza Grille in Hollywood’s Universal City.  As a high school girl at Hollywood High, I loved going to Miceli’s in Hollywood (the other location) after football games.  It was a classy date place.  So many memories. I have learned that the Miceli family has succeeded all these years because of their ATTITUDE.  It’s the value of HARD WORK and NEVER GIVING UP then things get difficult.  Hollywood is not an easy place to succeed on any front. And so, enter the pandemic.  Restaurants and other small and family owned businesses were suddenly shut down, labeled “non-essential.”  Lucky for Costco, WalMart, markets and pharmacies.  But not so lucky for the hairdressers and workout gyms.  And churches, choral societies, schools, theatres and voice, acting and dance studios. At the beginning of this year, I was on the phone with a friend Gerald Molen, line producer for Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park among others, and commented on a scene in that movie – the “essential workers” scene.  He remembered it well.  Watch it here: