Are You Contagious?

I work in an environment where great measures are employed to avoid infection.

We wear special clothes, move in specific patterns, and make all our choices hoping to keep infection at bay.
In some ways, this behavior is not unlike how we all function throughout each of our day to day lives.

A few weeks back I came down with strep throat. Among the more contagious of common illnesses an adult can deal with, I was not able to work for a day or so until the most severe symptoms subsided. For a few days I was contagious. In the environment I work in, I was dangerous. I was sent home and spent the next few days in one corner of our house avoiding my family. Nobody wanted the bad stuff I was harboring. Nobody wanted to be exposed.

No matter how you feel on a given day you are contagious. Your attitude and actions can and will be caught by those around you. Just like an illness, you will impact the people you come into direct contact with.
It does however, work in another way as well. Just as you can pass along illness or harm, your good works and peace are equally contagious.

I am not some touchy feely person asking you to smile at everyone you see or to write checks that cannot be cashed. Trust me, I have made a lifestyle of keeping more people at arms length then I embrace. Nevertheless, we all will have moments in the coming days when we know that something is needed from us. Someone will need you to be contagious. Give this person your advice. Give this person your ear. Extend your hand to lead the way or a shoulder to lean on. Infect and impact this person who has been placed in your path as only you uniquely can.

Don't wear a mask so often that people routinely avoid you. Don't glove-up to avoid contact. Don't wear protective clothing that gets in the way of imparting all you have to offer.
We are all contagious all the time.