getty creative
Unprecedented experiences lead to unprecedented lessons. In the bizarre year of a once-in-a-century pandemic with its attendant challenges (and the fraying of the body politic at the same time), we have all learned truths about ourselves and others that would not have been accessible in ordinary times. These range from the superficial but strangely vexing to the most profound questions of our relationship with loss, purpose and meaning. Don't waste the opportunity this hard time has given you to learn more about what's important to you and what's not.
Lessons about work, career and life
If you are willing to engage in some serious and consistent self-reflection, the pandemic year will have provided an opportunity to get clearer about what is most vital to you. Changes that were loosely and inconsistently contemplated prior to Covid-19 might be given more serious consideration now, thanks to a refinement and narrowing of vision. Should you change jobs or careers? Do you need a major overhaul of your goals and trajectory? Is retirement on the horizon, and if so, what do you want it to look like? You should have gained some clarity about what is most important to you and what can be let go of. The feeling that it's time now to live how one wants life to be is a positive outcomes of this difficult and sometimes heartbreaking time.
Assuming you have had the common experience of semi-quarantine and remote work, the last year should also have provided you with more specific data that can be useful in crafting a more satisfying and personally tailored work and personal life—one that suits your temperament, talents and sensitivities. Think about what has annoyed you during this time and what has been a pleasurable surprise.
Among the lessons you might have learned: How much do you need to be in the routine physical presence of other people. Whether you can maintain human contacts sufficiently when working remotely. How you manage with less externally imposed structure to your days. What your relationship with the lived environment is. What stimulates or dims your creativity, enthusiasm and productivity.
Personal needs (high, low or moderate) for novelty, structure, nature, other people, and so on should all have become more identifiable. As a result, you should be in a better position to know what you want and need to do. What kind of environment and schedule is maximally productive and comfortable for you? The essentials ought to have emerged more vividly.
Encounter with Uncertainty
The pandemic has given each of us an extraordinary and unprecedented encounter with uncertainty and novelty. This has not been welcome. It has driven home the message that we are not in control of very much. It has taught many of us that we need to develop strength in handling adversity and coping with uncertainty. It has acquainted us with our limitations. It's not clear what the long-term impact of this encounter with uncertainty will be for each of us. As with most things in life, the healthiest reaction is a moderate one. If you've been frightened by the new knowledge that nothing is for sure, try not to double down attempting to desperately control things around you. Nor is it a good idea to embrace a nihilistic stance, telling yourself that nothing is controllable so don’t even try to plan or organize your life.
As with just about every psychological trait, tolerance for uncertainty varies from individual to individual. Some people have an almost phobic fear of uncertainty and construct their lives to minimize it as much as possible. But the pandemic made such efforts look pretty futile. If you're one of those people who in former times did everything you could to keep things predictable, notice that you survived uncertain times —not without some pain, perhaps, but you survived. You may be able to consider letting a little more risk into your life since it turns out there is no such thing as warding off uncertainty. It's part of life.
Need For Excitement and Novelty
I've written elsewhere about the personality trait of sensation seeking. Each of us feels best with an optimal level of novelty and stimulation. Some people, high stimulus seekers, need a great deal of thrill and novelty to feel good. They're easily bored. They're attracted to new ventures, extreme sports and a high level of risk-taking. Others are much more comfortable with the familiar and routine and wouldn't be attracted to exotic travel or betting on a long shot. What does this have to do with the pandemic? Being in the same environment day after day with only your own company or that of a few others was an inherently low stimulus, low novelty environment. How did that make you feel? One friend of mine in her late 60s had always been a relatively high stimulus seeker, wanting or needing to explore new projects, new places, new people. She was surprised to find that she was content during the pandemic, with no yearning for travel or the old itch to make a change. The pandemic environment made her realized that she had changed from her young adult self and needed much less in the way of external novelty than she had before.
Did you find new ways to access stimulation and novelty? Music, painting, crafts, baking, cooking or pickling? While not the most exciting activities in the world, these new pursuits provided new avenues for keeping your mind and spirit vibrant and energized. Hang on to those, as they will be valuable throughout your life.
What's Next?
No matter how you've experienced the pandemic from a psychological point of view, give yourself time to regain your equilibrium. It's understandable that everyone wants to get back to "normal." But we have all been changed permanently by this experience, whether we are aware of it or not. And so have our friends and co-workers. And don't forget that many people have suffered devastating personal losses, even though they may not have told you.
The forced contemplative period of the pandemic—and the sheer weirdness of what we've been through—may have revealed what's most important to you. If it did, don't let that knowledge go. Do whatever you can to design the time and space in your post-pandemic life to match those priorities.
If you're more muddled than before, or if you found yourself unable to tolerate the emotional stresses of the pandemic's uncertainty, isolation and anxiety, or if you feel hopeless or helpless, please consider getting some therapy to help you regain your equilibrium. You don't want to lose another precious year of your life.
