Careering headlong back into the melee that was pre-pandemic life?
Are you someone who still refers to the ‘new normality’ as COVID restrictions fade into the background – and if so, just how ‘new’ is your daily routine?
Or are you someone who tired of that cliché just as soon as it was hatched some two years ago, moaned blind during lockdown(s) about being stripped of your rights to do ‘normal’ things and have paid scant regard to the opportunity that has just stared us in the face and careered headlong back into the melee that was pre-pandemic life?
Wise up guys, we have just been through – and, by the way, have not yet escaped from – a (hopefully) once in a lifetime human event when the world had to press pause and do things differently. Very differently.
Imagine just 30 months ago believing that it would be illegal to visit your own family members in their homes, that you couldn’t enjoy a pint or a picnic with friends, that a daily shopping or gym trip would be greeted with padlocked doors and that you could be fined if you tried to go to your own place of work.
Impossible, right?
How wrong could we be.
That’s exactly what we’ve just lived through. Weeks after long weeks of being confined to our homes (bar the statutory hour of exercise each day) with time forced upon us to review what’s important, plan for our dreams to become reality, shape our ideal business plan or lifestyle, longing for the restrictions to lift so we could put it all into action.
But did you?
It has surprised me how quickly people have rushed back to school, work, day to day living and picked up EXACTLY where they left off before the pandemic started.
At no point did it seem to occur to them there was value in sitting down and assessing what their position was and where they would like it to go next or deciding what they wanted to aim for.
I’m not saying that major changes are necessary (though in some instances they are vitally needed) however we’ve just been presented with a golden opportunity to shape our own lives yet there are so many that want to treat it as a blip on our radar that should be moved on from and ignored.
Come on guys. There’ll never be a better time to ring in the changes, switch up the pace, look at life with a different lens – call it what you will, my point is that it really is the perfect time to shake everything up a bit for the better.
You want to run around naked? Go ahead you’ve got my support. You want to sit around inventing stuff? Great, you’ve got my vote. You want to change tack entirely or find something more fulfilling to do? Fabulous, how can I help?
Ignore the media and the politicians at the moment. They are a case in point at having learnt nothing from recent experiences as they return to their usual shenanigans.
They ain’t going to change or be swayed by anything I can do so therefore I am not paying much attention to them as I plan and launch my new way forward. Believe me, after two years of confinement and stagnation, for me it’s going to be a choppy but exhilarating next 12 months as I grasp the opportunity for change with both hands.
(Before anyone gets on their high horse about me not seeming to care about us getting annihilated in a war, I again say there is nothing I can do about so I’m paying it no mind).
Like it or not, the pandemic is not over yet and we still have a window for change while the world has even half an eye on what’s going to happen with new variants and levels of transmission.
If whole businesses can pivot to make PPE for health workers when they have never produced a garment or design ventilators with no previous medical experience, it cannot be beyond the wit of man to make some tweaks in your private life or re-nose your business objectives so they actually align with what really matters to you. Can it?
plan for our dreams to become reality, shape our ideal business plan or lifestyle, longing for the restrictions to lift so we could put it all into action.
