Book excerpt: The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated our fragility as a species. Humanity was attacked by a previously unknown virus that spread very rapidly, thanks to a speed of population mobility never before seen in human history. It succeeded in creating the complete upset of the global socio-economic system. Such an event gives us an important stimulus to re-evaluate health in the context of a circular system that encompasses humans and the environment in which we live. The key challenge we face is the discovery of novel paths to crisis resolution. Can we abandon the often cherished, but now rather obsolete, tendency to specialize in a restricted subject area? Can we re-discover the ability to become permeable to ideas that reach us from other disciplines and embrace a thinking-out-of-the-box approach? This book encourages the reader to consider this challenge via the telling of stories, both great and small. Stories that, although sometimes overlooked, have defined the course of our history and thus open the door to a new pathway of progress. In some ways, COVID-19 may have shown the direction nature expects us to take. Ilaria Capua suggests to us that, today more than ever, we are the responsible actors in the circle of life, guardians of our planet and defenders of its health. As one entity of circular nature.