Some have praised me for my empathetic messaging at the outset of this crisis, which I appreciate, but I’ve been silent for the past few weeks. I didn’t know what to say.

As the reality settled in economically, I admit I needed a break from talking about it. Like everyone, I had to focus my limited energy on changing my plans and expectations for the year. Then I watched two of my staff go to zero personally as COVID touched their families dearly. What rallying cry could I make when I needed one myself? What to say?

Now people are contending with the politics of the day. What to say?

I don’t know what to say, but I do know a movie to watch.

There’s a movie that has stuck with me since I first watched it that keeps coming back to me, Do The Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee). It feels like an oddly prescient story of 2020. While we have a pandemic creating pressure and they had a heat wave, the rest is the same.

You should watch it. I won’t ruin it for you, but you’re possibly living through it right now if you’re in the United States.

As a young man watching it, the one lesson I have carried from this movie was that no one did the right thing because everyone lacked compassion. It didn’t take much pressure (the heat wave) to break society down along lines where compassion lacked.

Is this a Cloud Software Association story? Well, maybe. The stress we’re all under is being expressed in many contexts. I’m in the middle of a minor billing dispute where one SaaS company is trying to save cash, another is trying to just survive personally, and no one is seeing one another as a human.

And so I’ll just say, we’re only going to get through these hard times by digging deep, finding compassion for one another as human beings, and striving to Do The Right Thing. The companies and the people who can do this despite our own pain and suffering will emerge stronger and happier.