LET'S NOT GO BACK TO NORMAL
“Normal” has become an unusually loaded word lately.
What is normal?
How can we go back to it if we don’t know what it is?
When will things get back to normal?
And for the love of God, can we please stop using the phrase “the new normal?”
These are just a few of the comments I’ve been hearing within my community recently.
Each perspective is valid.
Each viewpoint on this newly contentious topic of normalcy is legitimate.
Over here, I’m listening, I’m paying attention, I’m tuning in to the various views on normal.
And, as I do, I have a confession.
I don’t want to go back to normal.
And I’m going to invite you to think about whether you do, as well.
Was our normal really working?
As Andrew Mitchell said in his article through the World Economic Forum, “Humans may not have created the coronavirus, but we have cultured the unnatural conditions needed for nature to toss a $10 trillion-dollar time bomb into our economy."
We have been plowing forward, grinding it out, and Getting Things Done, at top speed for the last several decades.
According to a study of 50 families in Northwest England, 88% of kids were participating in activities 4-5 days per week, and 58% were going to more than one activity in a single evening.
Our collective anxiety has been rising.
Our nation has so little trust in our establishment of politicians and leaders that we elected a four-times bankrupt narcissist and reality TV star as the President of the United States of America.
Kids around the world want to be YouTube stars when they grow up.
We create illusions of our lives that we post on Instagram and Facebook, and spend nearly two and a half hours each day on social media, scrolling mindlessly through other people’s perfectly curated illusions of their lives through tiny squares and comment boxes.
We conflate happiness with “likes” and impact with hours and productivity with worth.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that normal isn’t really all that it was cracked up to be.
Glimpses of something different
Kids riding their bikes, families out for midday walks, neighbors dropping off meals and toilet paper and deck screws and notes.
Distanced birthday walk-bys, with banners and horns and songs and joy.
Parades of teachers and friends and teammates.
Time for reading, time for baking, time for slowing down and breathing and reflecting on whether this thing we were doing before was really working so well overall.
Now, this is not meant to gloss over the devastation that the virus has caused - from the 244,000 deaths around the world, to the over 33 million people who are currently unemployed in the US. It is in no way meant to slap a silver lining on the situation or say that “things happen for a reason.”
It is, however, an invitation to pause and reflect. To, before grasping tightly to what we once had or attempting to recreate it exactly as it was, consider whether it’s what we really want. To ask, “is there a better way - even if ever-so-slightly - that would be of service to me, to those I love, to our collective society, and to our precious planet?”
To not ask “when can we get back to normal?,” but instead, “What do we want to create from here? What can the future look like? What is possible from this point forward? What do I miss that I surely want to bring back - and what don’t I miss that I want to consciously shed and let go of?”
The future is ours to define. Rather than thrusting ourselves back into the things we’ve always done, let’s pause and ask, “do we still want to do this? Is this part of my truth? Or might this be an opportunity for something different?”
And then, from this place of truth and clarity, we can collectively, and consciously, create it...one decision, one choice, and one step forward at a time.
