Crisis doesn’t change people; it reveals them. ~ Eric Walters

A crisis is a mirror. And COVID had been a powerful mirror on my country; who we are, what we value, who we forgot. It exponentially amplifies what had always been there, where previously it may be hidden away, or suppressed. Skeletons in the closet comes alive and gets laid bare. Things we used to brush it off as minor, now becomes major.

COVID had mirrored to me:

Which jobs and industries are truly essential? Who are the people dutifully doing them? Why are they so underpaid or overworked? Why are they so undervalued and deemed unimportant? Where do they live, and how is it that we didn’t care? What’s equal and equitable?

What’s the value of food? As more and more types of F&Bs close due to increasingly stricter lockdown measure, what’s left, and why? Is bread really more important than cake? Staples more crucial than desserts? If we didn’t need them now, do we really need them later?

What is it that I do in my daily job that has an impact? What truly moves the needle, makes a difference to live? What is just busy work? Now that we no longer have meetings, we realised most of these meetings could really have been an email, or a phone call. What’s essential, what’s theatre?

What lifestyle activities do you do now? Everything is closed – entertainment, malls, cafes, almost all forms of modern consumption as we know it. We’re left with our parks, nature, exercise and family. And of course, Netflix. Did we really need that much entertainment? Or are those just distractions? 

Finally, what’s normal? We whine a lot about the new normal. Most are looking forward to going back to the old normal. But before we rush back, are there some parts of the old normal we shouldn’t be rushing back towards? Are there some bits in this new normal we should embrace?