It will never be same again ...

And should it be? COVID-19 pandemic has a silver lining in the dark cloud. The overall impact to millions of people and hundreds of thousands of lost lives to date and counting is very tragic, my heart fully goes out to them and their families. But there are a lot of possibilities this situation has forced us to explore and lots of positive lessons revealed. Like the phrase ‘art of possible’ I would like to toss the phrase ‘force of possible’. It’s unfortunate that it took a pandemic to learn these lessons for an otherwise intelligent brained human. As they say, some things can only be learned by experience, no matter how much you ask someone to do or not to do, telling kids not to touch the fire as an instance. My generation, perhaps part of my previous generation and the next generations, were sort of in a ‘taken for granted’ mode before February 2020. It’s the age of abundance – of facilities, of infrastructure, of technology, of freedom and so on. My kids often ask me – what do you mean by you did not have cell phones or phones for that matter years ago? How did you even complete your studies without a tablet? Except for a few geo-political and lower economic hotspots around the world, for a larger part, in last few decades if not century, people have largely enjoyed freedom, peace, better health and abundance. I am not saying it’s true for everyone, I get it .. there are still freedom fights happening of different sorts, poverty and hunger are still issues to be resolved and health crisis happens every now and then. But again, for a larger part we did not know what adversity means. What does the term saving for the rainy day even mean? If you have a cell phone, internet and money why do you even need anything called as social support? However much this pandemic has made you vulnerable, this awakening is what I believe is the silver lining in my opinion. And that I hope will be a change for good. I insist, it should be. 

This pandemic has touched many facets of our lives and it will be hard to cover all of those here. Especially, healthcare, crisis management, economic and political, I will save those for later. Today, I am just sharing my thoughts on some of the key aspects that I feel are most directly important to our day to day life and could be long lasting. I appeal to you to share what touched you and share it as well in the comments below. 

Environment

We have seen news about range of Himalayas being visible from 200+ miles due to lowest pollution levels which has not happened in over last 30 years. We watched animals reclaiming places from deer on the streets of usually busy New Delhi roads to dolphins returning to shores of Venice to geese on the airports and elephants on the streets. Less and less of fuel is being burned, less aircrafts flying the skies, less factories running, the less places are crowded, there lesser noise pollution, and less plastic is being used and less meat is consumed. Earth is slightly turning green again and breathing better. It has got a chance to reset. Can we not leave it like this forever?

Okay, may be its unfair to keep it like it forever. Afterall, we have to feed ourselves and family, have to be fit, have to entertain ourselves and earn money and hence we have to work and travel. And by the way we do celebrate environment day, isn’t it? Seriously? once a year by running earth/eco parades across streets and displaying our concern on social pages? Can we not have a mandatory global shutdown time, like the summer vacations in school? May be a month in a year or a week per quarter, just to be kind towards earth and help her heal a little bit from our infinite extractions of benefits from it?

Lifestyle

Frankly, when the lockdowns were first declared, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s an unplanned vacation. Its uncalled, but welcome for sure. Afterall, I will be on my own schedule, I can do what I want and work when I want to!’. Didn’t we all think alike? Tell me if you had different thoughts in your mind. It took barely about a week or two, to realize it’s not what we thought, whether you are able to work remotely or not. We kind of have to set in a routine. If we don’t have those ergonomics right, it hurts, hurts badly. Just because food and snacks are at arm’s reach, we can’t eat all the time. If we don’t keep our body moving and blood circulating, we start swelling and start losing energy. Like the ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’, we did eventually get into ‘self-actualization’ mode.

On the other hand, we did regain the most precious commodity – time. We do have a little extra time at our hand, since we do not have to commute for work, school, groceries, recreation or whatever it is. Uncountable number of my friends have dusted off that piano or the guitar they have not touched for ages, have found apps that help them record their melodious voice, have taken up the brush and colors to start on a fresh canvas, have picked their cameras with latest and greatest features and have actually started exploring them, have picked up pen (Oh, come on! that is such old fashioned. Okay, let’s say keypad instead.) and started writing, have started tapping to the dancing tunes, have got themselves into yoga and fitness and what not. Me writing this blog is an example, it has been on my list forever. It’s almost miraculous. There has been unprecedented surge in online hobby classes and videos.

We are now more conscious about our health and cleanliness. We have learned now that every vacation doesn’t have to be a travel to some destination. We are sharing our spaces well together. We have learned a little more to adjust better with each other and balance work and life. There are more family dinners at the table, more dialogue, more quality time between family members. We are creating some of the best memories with our kids and family members that will keep giving us energy for the lifetime. Thanks to the supply chain issues, we have slowly started appreciating what we have. We can perhaps empathize a little more intimately now and understand the problems others could be going through and be kind to people. 

Why should all this change ever back to so called normal before the pandemic? Afterall, isn’t the whole quest for automation, robotics and artificial intelligence, for improving the quality of human life? 

Work

There are a lot of jobs that require you to go to a workplace, a traditional office or in the field. This time has been physically and economically challenging for them. It will be very unfair to say that I can understand the pain they are going through, because it’s not imaginable. But what I am going to say here is applicable more to the people who have ability to work remotely from their homes or anywhere, especially for those who have been commuting long distances or traveling to different cities / countries for work normally. The newfound capability to be able to accomplish work remotely is far impactful. This enforced transformation is bringing ‘future of work’ to present reality. This is the new normal. A lot of technology product companies have already declared their plans to allow people working remotely permanently. More changes will come in near future as more companies will reduce travel requirements. With advent of 5G, virtual reality, AI etc. the conversations will become more real. People – clients and management and product developers and service providers alike, have developed more tolerance towards people being human and having natural distractions of family members, pets, surrounding noises, technology issues, not being camera ready times and as such. On a lighter note, I said to someone recently – “See, background noise is not only a third world offshore problem anymore!”. When your offshore colleagues are working a second and third shift from their homes it is bit of a normal that we need to accept. 

 So, when it’s time for ‘return to work’ in the traditional way, one question you need to ask yourself whether you are calling others to office or you are going to office yourself, ‘is it really, really, really necessary?’ I mean yes, there will be occasions and tasks that will require you to work together as a team and meet your colleagues and share ideas and so on and it can be done on an as needed basis. But does it really have to change back to the old normal?

Again, I will be interested to read what is that silver lining you have seen during this pandemic.