To the me who I used to be before Coronavirus…
“You’re so looking forward to leaving the life that you have now, but when it changes – all that you’ll want is to go back. Changes don’t always happen how you think they will…”
Like so many other people, my life plans have changed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
We were due to move to Australia in September, and now the new plan is September 2021 because all of our weddings from this summer have moved to next summer. All of the borders are closed for the foreseeable. We’re getting used to life in what was a temporary, short-term flat; in a place that I thought I was just passing through.
This is just a minor inconvenience compared to what many people have gone through, and it’s a good exercise in trusting that everything happens for a reason.
I think all of our lives have changed in some way, and as I see it – this is how we will all change for the better after this pandemic ends…
This has to be the biggest one. If you’re like me, you will have been on many, many Zoom calls. I had 3 over my birthday weekend and actually felt just as socially fatigued as if I’d been partying and seeing people all weekend (hello introvert life!)
BUT – calls on the internet have their fair share of problems: time limits, wobbly internet connection, and not being able to hear people over their background noise. I think the biggest change after this will be that everyone realises how incredibly amazing it is to see, hug and spend time with their friends and family again.
I’ve been very lucky to be in isolation with another person, and I really do wonder how people have made it through on their own. I also really feel for the people who live abroad and haven’t been able to see their families; I’m so glad that we didn’t move to Australia before the lockdown, because I think not being physically allowed to leave the country and see my family would make me feel like I was a million miles away instead of just 10,000.
The first thing we’ll all want to do is to see our friends and family, and I think – after Coronavirus – we’ll appreciate the time we have with them so much more, knowing that it could become illegal at any moment. It’s not something that we ever thought we’d experience, but this shows it can happen.
We’ll all find extra love & gratitude for the people we have in our life.
I have “This Too Shall Pass…” tattooed on my thigh for this exact reason, but I still always forget.
Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is permanent. We’re living in a fluid energy reality that is subject to change and influenced by a collective consciousness.
We like to think that things are solid because it gives our human mind something to hold onto, but really – what we think is real can shift and destruct in a single second. Again, this brings us back to gratitude; being grateful for what we have now, knowing that it can change in any moment.
It can change to something better, or it can change to something worse; either way, the best we can do is to always be grateful for now.
Nothing is permanent, life changes, and this pandemic wasn’t what anyone expected this year. So many of my friends were due to get married this summer, and now I’m trying to cancel all of the hotels and travel bookings that I’ve made for them. I spent £200 on a hotel in London and booked the non-refundable option thinking:
“I’m a bridesmaid at this wedding and the wedding’s been booked, there’s absolutely no way that I’d need to get a refund for this – so I’m not paying extra for an amendable booking…”
Well, I was wrong, and now I’m down £200 🤪 Nothing is permanent. Nothing is guaranteed. After this, I think we’ll all learn to flow with life better and enjoy what we have now, knowing it’s subject to change.
I’m used to travelling a lot, and that’s been one of the hardest things for me. My no.1 value is freedom, so I hate feeling trapped and am usually away every weekend in addition to travelling globally multiple times a year.
As it’s my normal life – I do forget that it’s a luxury. I never travelled in my childhood, so I appreciate it in that sense, but once you become habituated to luxuries it’s easy not to see them.
I think all of us will appreciate how wonderful it is to travel; to see new cultures; to go somewhere new; experience different climates; different foods; and just to get on a plane and have that “airport experience”.
I think people will be sheepish getting on a plane and travelling while the risk of a virus still looms, even once it’s declared “over”, but we’ll definitely all realise how precious it is to live in this era where we can travel the world more easily than ever before.
I know that I’ll be getting on a plane out of here as soon as I can!
I love working from home, and I could never go back. I’ve probably got millions of other people who are joining me in that vein of thought now.
How many people have enjoyed a more relaxed way of life, now that they don’t have to sit in rush hour for 2 hours a day, choose an outfit to wear, put on make-up, and endure sitting next to coworkers they can’t stand for 5 days a week?
A lot of people have realised that they can work from home, so I think a lot of them will work from home as much as possible.
From what I’ve seen on Instagram, there’s also an influx of new accounts popping up, so I suspect there’ll be an enormous surge in entrepreneurship as well…
Many people will be starting new businesses as they look for a way to work from home more. We have a wonderful gift in the internet, and I think people will utilise it as much as possible to feel more comfortable, creative and free in their own space.
Even if we loved the great outdoors before, we love it even more now.
It’s provided a respite from the walls of our home, and we’ve learned to treasure our one walk a day as a sacred, sweet escape.
Even when we haven’t been allowed to connect with others, we’ve still been able to connect with nature. Just a walk around the block feels so good when we can’t go anywhere else. For people spending all day with partners and kids, the outside has given them freedom, space and fresh air.
I think that we’ll appreciate our parks, neighbourhoods and beaches more than ever.
In return, I think they appreciate us more too because pollution has dramatically fallen from a lack of human interference (read article). Nature has been our sanctuary during Coronavirus, and I hope that we can maintain this connection and appreciation once life goes back to normal.
☽ ☆ ☾
There’s no doubt that we’ll all feel the effects of Coronavirus for at least the rest of this year, but the question is whether it’ll be outlived by changes in our psyche as we form new habits and ways of living.
I also wonder about the effect that it will have on our young people. People like my nieces and nephews, for whom this experience will be formative for what they expect as adults. How will this shape how they see the world, and will it make them more risk-averse knowing that their way of life can be taken away at any second?
From the statistics in the news, it looks like this pandemic will be coming to a close soon – but some of these changes will live on long after it. How has the Coronavirus changed you for the better?
