Why there is no new normal

A term that recently came up even more than COVID19 itself is the so called ?new normal“. It implies that life after the crises will not be the same as before even if we manage to keep infections down. While I agree with the intention the term itself is inadequate out of my perspective, because it discloses how wrong our perception of normal and change might be. Instead I would say:

life after the crises will be normal but different. 

Normal is what is within the norm. But norms change and they should. We see this when we experience different cultures with different norms. At first, differences might lead to conflicts but when we understand the circumstances and adapt they resolve. We see different norms amongst different generations as well which shows they develop over time even within the same regions. And if we reflect ourselves we ultimately see that some things today are normal for us which were not before. Norms are not fixed even if we assume so (especially on the short term). In other words: what we perceive as normal changes. 

But if (what we perceive as) normal changes that puts us into action. We have accommodated for what is normal and change will come at a cost and at effort. And if we are honest: only few of us really want to invest in change if everything works well. If everything is fine, what we do stays ?ok“ and normal does not change. And even if we feel that some minor things do not work, we still stay within what is ok and try to conceal what is not. A crises challenges us in this approach. It shows drastically that things are not ok. That our definition of normal is not suitable while it might have been before. That we have not invested enough to reflect and change. 

If we had reflected and changed the financial system gradually throughout the beginning of globalization, there might have been no financial crises. If we had reflected hygiene standards and rules, COVID19 might not have been developed or spread. And now we see: indeed it does not work how we did it until some weeks before. Even virologists within the last two months constantly had to admit multiple times within short periods: ?we have to change our assumptions“. They had to adapt their perception of normal quickly and we for some extent had to as well. But when we ramp up social life gradually we will have to even more. I remember myself in Janurary crossing a passenger group of an Asian tourists at an airport, all of them wearing masks, and myself being a bit puzzled of the view I had - it was clearly not normal to me. Today I wear a mask in public areas as I understand the circumstances better. It has become normal. 

The ?new normal“ still implies there is some ?regular normal“; it implies what we perceive to be normal today is only because of the crises. That something else is the reason for it and that the root lies not in ourselves. It is not. The crises was a tipping point that discloses our assumptions were wrong and what we thought to be ok was actually not. We have to invest into change. And if we learn a bit at least, we will not only do once, but reflect and adapt constantly (as we do even daily right now looking at the R factor). 

This is not comfortable, but responsible. And when we reflect and adapt, we might come to the conclusion that something which is ok today is different than what was ok the day before - normal but different.