Things Will Never Be The Same After The Pandemic
It came suddenly.
From ‘Oh, it’s nothing to ‘We must shut down entire society or else’ in a few months. Or, at least in the Western parts of the world…
One day we were going about our busy daily lives, living as we always did, and the next day we were sitting in our houses, surprised out of our minds about what was happening.
But everything was just getting started. From there on, it was going to be a constant series of shocks and revelations that changed everything we knew about society and the life we knew it to be.
The first thing we learned was that human life had little importance compared to what is called ‘the economy’…
Many governments resisted locking down the country for the sake of the economy. Major institutions and think-thanks openly declared that the pandemic was ‘okay’ because ‘it mainly affected the elderly’. So it was not a threat to ‘the economy’. Some governments even went as far as to bluntly say it outright. Others avoided openly saying it, but it showed in their actions.
But there was no time to digest that — shocking realizations just kept coming…
The next realization was that 80%-90% of the work we were doing was doable from our homes. All that dreary commute was totally unnecessary.
Productivity even went up while working from home. All that criticism about working from home being unproductive turned out to be outright nonsense.
We could have been working from home all this time, being close to our loved ones, being there for them when they needed us, being comfortable in our homes while being more productive…
Then people started dying…
Old people, young people, healthy people…
Who would die was totally left to chance.
That ultra-healthy co-worker could just die tomorrow. As well as that relative who followed a healthy lifestyle all his life. There was no thumb rule.
Somebody who was healthy and kicking just yesterday could be gone tomorrow.
You could also be gone tomorrow…
That was one of the biggest realizations.
You could just be gone tomorrow.
Leaving all that work, money, career behind…
Without doing any of that stuff you wanted to do, but postponed…
So, then, what’s all that work for? All that money?
Gains made at the cost of time, at the cost of human relations, family, friends?
At the cost of things that make you happy, at the cost of things which you always wanted to do?
What's the point of all that effort?
You could be gone tomorrow in the blink of an eye. Your loved ones could be gone tomorrow in the same manner.
If people are gone, or you just die tomorrow, what’s the point of everything we have been doing?
Maybe people and living our life were what was important all along…
Family… Friends… Relatives… Coworkers… Even neighbors…
It feels like everything we have been doing was meaningful only when there were people to benefit from it, enjoy it, give meaning to it. Everything out there, was only meaningful when there were people to share it with.
It looks like people make up society as we know it, along with what we know life to be…
You feel that we got our priorities mixed up all along, caring about things that could change at a moment’s notice instead of prioritizing what gives life its meaning.
Maybe you should spend more time with your family and friends…
Call that distant relative… Catch up with that coworker from way back… Say hi to the neighbor next door…
You think maybe you should start doing that thing you always wanted to do, instead of postponing it.
You feel like you should prioritize living your life instead of waiting.
And you don’t seem to be the only one. There are other people you know who started asking similar questions to themselves and started arriving at the same conclusions. As a result, people’s perspectives about life and society seem to be changing.
You hear that a lot of people are resigning from their jobs. A lot of people seem to be choosing to make a living by doing things they like and having time for their family and friends, rather than laboring their lives away in well-paid careers for the sake of money and transient job titles. Some call it ‘the Great Resignation’…
Even as the lockdown is lifted, and ‘the economy’ starts getting back on track along with the work-life that accompanies it, you don’t see people wanting to go back to the way things were before.
Resignations continue… Those who work in old corporate jobs push for work from home… People start to pursue their passions instead of postponing things… Everyone is reordering the priorities…
You realize that the outlook of people on life has changed. And along with that change, society seems to be changing. For the simple reason that people make up the society, and when they change their minds, the society changes as well — and easily so.
You never thought that everything could change this drastically within just a year. Not only you and your own perspective on life but the perspectives of millions over millions of people along with yours.
It feels like the world will never be the same anymore. You know it can’t be the same, because now you know what you didn’t know before. Things just can’t be the same.
And maybe, it's for the better…
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