The COVID-19 pandemic has been rough to say the least. Most of us were confined to our homes for months on end and, in the best-case scenario, we baked banana bread and watched Netflix to stay busy. Now, as things reopen and life gets back to normal, it is easy to forget the things we learned in those eighteen months.
So, before you buy antigen test kit and head out to the newly reopened world, why not remind yourself of a few of the really valuable lessons the COVID-19 pandemic taught us.
You can live globally from your sofa
Even though we don’t want travel to be restricted again, it was incredible to see just how little we need to travel to live globally. With the advent of software like Zoom and Teams, the world moved online as the offline world closed its doors to us.
Everything from staff meetings and university lectures to national conferences and interview events took place online with thousands around the country tuning in online. This move to the online world was necessary because travel was restricted but it showed everyone how accessible life could be if we were to maintain this method of meeting.
While no one wants to see long term travel restrictions stay in place (with the help of antigen test kits it’s getting easier to avoid), the pandemic showed how conferences and events held in cities across the globe could be made accessible to those who could not travel.
Our key workers do keep the country running
When the entire nation shut down, a select few, deemed ‘key workers,’ still had to go out to work. As we clapped our NHS staff and remembered the teachers going to work to look after children of other key workers, many others kept the country running too.
People working in everything from food production and sales to care and local and national government were considered key workers. This opened everyone’s eyes to the value of workers that they, perhaps, hadn’t valued enough before.
Balance is the key to a happy life
Lack of commute and a new workplace at home meant that many workers found they suddenly had free time. Along with furloughed workers, many around the country began using up their newly found free time to exercise, go for long walks, and cook nutritious meals.
As the world opens back up, we’re reminded that a good work-life balance is key to your overall happiness. Having the time to pursue hobbies, get out into nature, and enjoy good food has reminded people that it truly is the small things in life that make it worth living.
Now that the world has restarted, it is worth keeping those peaceful moments scattered through the chaos of a post-pandemic world, to remain balanced and help you to lead a happier life.
Don’t take life experiences for granted
Of all the things we missed this year, it is those life moments we will never get back. Scores of people missed weddings, funerals, graduations, holidays, and even just moments with a loved one. If the pandemic has only taught us these few things, this seems the most important.
In the post-pandemic world, it may be easy to take for granted those moments again. Though the pandemic, lockdowns, and everything else that came with it isn’t happy memories, it is worth remembering them if only to remind ourselves of what we missed.
We’re starting to move on from the pandemic now and get back to a sense of normality, and with it, we may want to forget it. The key to learning from the pandemic though is remembering that time for the lessons it taught us and helping us to grow from those experiences.