Learn, unlearn, re-learn: Decoding the post-pandemic normal and future realities

One of my best friends, who lives in Kolkata, let’s call her Maya, has a boyfriend who lives in a different continent... let’s call him Stewart. So, Maya and Stewart had been in a long-distance relationship for four years till Covid struck.

Before that, both would visit each other whenever they could, and were working on a plan to relocate to a neutral, halfway zone. Dubai occupied one of the top spots on their relocation wish-list.

When the pandemic changed travel rules, they both decided to wait it out. It would be tough, they said gamely, “but love will find a way”.

And then, last year, when the second wave gobsmacked India, Maya called me one day to say, “Stewart and I have decided to split. Both of us are convinced that Covid will not go anywhere, travel will be a lost cause, and if we don’t get to see each other regularly, there’s no point really. Already one year has taken a toll on our relationship.”

The following weekend, she sent me an “It’s over” message, alongside a teary-eyed emoji. I called her to ask how it went. It took them three Skype calls to find closure. They both wept. But swore to remain friends.

More than a year passed.

A couple of months ago, Maya WhatsApped me early one morning to say she and Stewart were back together. “How wrong we were to imagine that Covid had changed our lives! So, we’re back to square one, he’s visiting in August, and then I’ll go over to him for Christmas.”

Covid had ushered in a new phrase. ‘The New Normal’. The past was being unlearnt. Many of us had already decided that the “old ways of the world” would be turned on their heads. Social media was full of advice and proclamations about how our futures would be different. We would be more introspective. More at ease in our own company. Would cut through the human clutter and see people for who they really are. And so on.

While these were intangibles, there were also tangible changes. Overnight, we became virtual travellers (a friend played Edith Piaf in the background while indulging in a virtual city tour of Paris). Work from home became a norm. Meetings — both professional and personal — moved onto platforms like Zoom. Web shopping got a life of its own (I’ve never in my life shopped for apparel online — but even I started buying FabIndia kurtis online and realised that perhaps — just perhaps — fitting rooms were overrated). Children were taking classes online, and there were concerns raised about their “social” skills. I know at least three people in my peer group who sold their cars.

A few of us quit our jobs. “I realise I can live off my savings, since my expenses have come down drastically — and things will be like this for a long time now,” someone I know told me, and I agreed with him whole-heartedly.

Real estate prices crashed, and those who had been eyeing properties but (pre-Covid) getting put off by year-on-year escalations, decided it was a great time to buy — and they secured some super deals. And then there were those who sold properties fearing the worst is yet to come.

Just as we thought our lives were being reinvented — for better or for worse, only time would tell — the axis started moving back, slowly but surely, towards where we were before the virus became a game-changer. Covid is still sneaking around, but it’s now more of an irritant rather than a lethal swipe. Yes, we have to be careful, but we need to hit the stride back — because the world is opening up. Take the case of Work From Home, which trended as #WFH for the better part of two years. In the post-Covid era, one study claimed that 65 per cent employees do not want to return to the workplace, whereas another stated that only around 7 per cent are still doing WFH. Basically, an overwhelming number are having to go to office without really wanting to.

It’s better to strategically adapt — than unlearn

Hussein Rifai — strategic adviser, global keynote speaker and chairman of SPC Global — notes that the process of unlearning and relearning is “something that should have already been a part of our everyday lives, but it’s something we often forget when life gets comfortable and stable”.

For instance, those “who began getting comfortable with remote working, will now need to relearn what it feels like to work from office spaces or in hybrid working environments.” But there was the accompanying realisation of putting your own interests first. So, those who “were put through the wringer at their previous jobs to survive, have quit to find better options elsewhere.”

The pandemic also involved tougher decisions than finding the right shirt-tie-shorts combination for a Zoom or Microsoft Teams call while working from home. “While the Covid era was about making ends meet, keeping businesses afloat, and ensuring we got paid sufficient salaries to survive, the post-Covid era has raised questions about whether the ends justified the means. Under pressure, a lot of business managers and company executives showed their true colours — whether good or bad. As a result, the post-Covid era has witnessed a ‘great awakening’ accompanied by the ‘great resignation’.”

Entrepreneur Tara Rose Kidd, founder of Tara Rose Salons and Training Academy, feels (going into the pandemic) no one ever anticipated life as we knew it then would be turned on its head in a matter of weeks. “Covid has been unlike anything any of us have experienced in our lifetimes… Change is scary, especially when it’s paired with such an event as a pandemic. But, in the process of experiencing such a life-altering event, I think many of us realised we could use the time to let the change impact us positively.” Tara believes we can all continue to learn from the ‘new normal’, even if it’s just learning more about who you are as a person.

“I know in many ways we are still learning, still coping — I think that will continue for some time because we are still dealing with Covid as a worldwide crisis. I feel that reflecting and questioning are critical to being able to cope well. We should be trying to learn and grow from our experiences, both as individuals and as organisations. There may be no better time than now. Just as we had to unlearn to adjust to life with Covid, we can adjust our lives and habits to reflect the world we live in now — we are incredibly resilient, it just takes embracing the fact that ‘normal’ is what you make of it.”

Maintaining the status quo — by design

If anything, Covid taught Mary Grothe — founder and CEO, House of Revenue — that more “flexibility” was needed in the workplace to foster her own health and her team’s. “I had to change the old normal by setting firm work hours from 9am to 4pm — instead of working all day and night — and offer a flexible hybrid work option and [enable my team] to take time off.” She also learned to only take on clients that “shared our values and energised us”.

Two years after, this “hasn’t changed for us because it’s working out so well and I don’t foresee any changes in the near future.” In fact, if there’s anything that needs to be unlearned, it’s the pre-Covid work mentality of always working, being the first in the office and the last out of office, “that work is only productive in a corporate office, and that we have to take on every single potential client that crosses our path”.

These habits and thought processes were not sustainable nor healthy and Mary is grateful that Covid revealed that to her — and many others. Since implementing their new work policies, she has seen an improvement in her own mental health, as well as that of her team’s. Additionally, productivity has actually gone up. “By first taking care of ourselves and setting work boundaries, our professional lives have improved for the better and that wellbeing has also spilled into our personal lives. Finally, being happier and healthier also means that we can serve our clients more successfully and have more quality time and energy for our families.”

Why it wasn’t even ‘normal’

It was a LOT more comfortable working in PJs, is how performing artist Lamya Tawfik laughingly sums up what worked well for her over the pandemic. “You know, the idea of a ‘new normal’ just didn’t make sense to me… for instance, when they said WFH is the new normal, I was thinking how can this be normal? But then you get used to it — realising it can’t be normal, but also realising that you need to adapt.”

It’s the fact that Lamya knew “deep down” it’s not normal that made her not get too entrenched emotionally in the ‘new normal’ routine. One new ‘learning’ she acquired was becoming a Netflix binge-watcher. “I may have been bingeing to keep myself sane — by getting a peek into other people’s lives on OTT shows instead of worrying about my own!” It was escapism, she admits, and she indulged in it a lot.

Now that she’s out of that zone, “bingeing is a guilty pleasure — not a norm. But whenever I binge, I say to myself ‘Oh, it’s like those days, not the good old days but those days…”

Lamya does have one regret though. A lot of folks she knew, in an attempt to extract some good out of the social isolation, worked hard to focus on their health. “They were working out, eating healthy — whereas all I did was try and remain sane… I did not take care of myself at all [sigh].”