“Seize the day, Trinidad and To­ba­go, do not put off what you want­ed to do.”

This is the out­look of Robert Le Hunte who is now man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of ANSA Bank Ltd. The for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Min­is­ter shared his new point of view last Sun­day af­ter con­tract­ing COVID-19 while in Ghana dur­ing Christ­mas.

“I have a sto­ry,” Le Hunte said, “And it is all of our sto­ries for the last 18 months in this time of COVID.”

“Once up­on a time, we all de­vot­ed our en­er­gies to plan­ning and strate­giz­ing for the fu­ture, in our per­son­al lives and in our ca­reers. In busi­ness, there’s al­ways the An­nu­al Strate­gic Plan. The Na­tion­al Bud­get is the coun­try’s an­nu­al de­vel­op­ment roadmap.

“Most of us be­gin every New Year with a wish list of res­o­lu­tions. I won­der how many of any of those well-in­ten­tioned goals ac­tu­al­ly come to pass. Some get side­lined with oth­er more press­ing re­quire­ments. Some we may think are too am­bi­tious. Some sim­ply get post­poned to an­oth­er year.”

But Le Hunte said the pan­dem­ic has forced every­one to adopt a new style of man­ag­ing what they in­tend­ed to do, whether peo­ple like it or not.

“Most of us don’t want to change be­cause we’re crea­tures of habit. But we’ve had to be­come flex­i­ble. Flu­id. Less rigid and def­i­nite. We plan for con­tin­gen­cies in­stead of cer­tain­ties.

“Will we be able to trav­el? Can we arrange the mar­riage re­cep­tion of our dreams? Will our chil­dren be al­lowed back in school so we can fo­cus on our jobs? Can we de­pend on the sup­ply chain for our busi­ness? Main­tain full staff? Will our health sys­tem cope with new vir­u­lent vari­ants?”

The for­mer Min­is­ter ex­plained his in­sight came from re­cent plans to spend Christ­mas with his Ghana-born wife’s fam­i­ly in Ghana.

“We’d nev­er done it and it was im­por­tant for us to do it. We de­cid­ed that, de­spite the trav­el­ling risks, we’d take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions but would make the trip while we could. We did not know what the fu­ture might hold.

“So we went. And were so glad we could spend time with fam­i­ly we hadn’t seen in over two years. If you lost fam­i­ly or friends due to the virus, as I have, it re­al­ly brings home what is im­por­tant. Noth­ing re­in­forces the val­ue of life it­self more than when we have first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence of just how frag­ile it is.”

Le Hunte who was ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, con­tract­ed COVID-19 while in Ghana.

“I con­sid­er my­self for­tu­nate my symp­toms were mild, but I was still anx­ious. When you have ‘in­ti­ma­tions of mor­tal­i­ty’, as Wordsworth called it, you be­gin think­ing about all those plans you made and shelved to ex­am­ine an­oth­er day.

“Of­ten those ring-bound plans in their fan­cy cov­ers sim­ply join the oth­er plans from pre­vi­ous years, gath­er­ing dust. So what I’m go­ing to do, and my wish for all in this New Year is to seize the day. Take down from the shelf all those plans, de­sires, wish­es, res­o­lu­tions and good in­ten­tions. Start to do them. Now.”

Le Hunte added, “None of us can guar­an­tee to­mor­row will con­form to our ex­pec­ta­tions. Take all the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions while liv­ing in the mo­ment and re­mem­ber the way to be hap­py is to make oth­ers hap­py and we’ll have a lit­tle heav­en right here. My de­ceased mum’s fa­vorite say­ing.”

He ad­vised, “Give self­less­ly of your­self and leave the rest to God your Cre­ator. I wish every­one a most ful­fill­ing 2022.”