The year of 2020 brought people all around the world with a harsh reality of a new pandemic that changed life in so many ways, no matter your location, financial means, family unit, and status overall. So many people faced a brand new reality that we couldn’t expect when coming into the year and that truly altered a great deal of what we were used to in the beginning of 2020 or in 2019. And even though we’re three quarters through 2021 as we speak, a lot of the virus’ impacts haven’t been removed from our lives.
In fact, it seems to have created a shift overall that will not move back in some ways. Here’s an overview on how life has changed since the virus hit, as we are moving further from the beginning of this pandemic and its changes.
At Home Options
Businesses, medical visits, schools, and so much else had to move into more home-based visits and functions for folks to be able to reduce contact with others and reduce the amount of spread for the virus. This includes delivery options for groceries, foods, and more, online schooling, at-home work and shifts to online businesses, telehealth options for doctors visits, and even more. Some of us saw this as a necessary change for our life, others saw only pieces, and some of us are continuing this habit now.
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Sanitation and Cleanliness
Obviously a virus brings a lot of concern from businesses and people in general around the world and for reduction of spread of disease. This means many sanitation needs, urges for more cleanliness, and more. We were all urged to sanitize or wash our hands frequently, buildings and businesses had to find the most effective and time efficient ways to truly clean surfaces and common areas, and more. This led to innovative cleanliness options and heavier stress on clean environments.
Creativity Spike
Those of us out there that were able to adjust to schedule and lifestyle changes so heavily and had creative impulse created this spike in DIYs for home life, creativity in business or marketing, new hobbies and increased use of art or hobbies as businesses, and so much more. In fact, plenty of small businesses began or found better footing in the pandemic since many were online-based already in some way and could work with the changes easier (many also faced losses).
Increased Community
We all watched as the virus took away a major portion of what we saw as normalcy in our lives and our communities, watched friends and family members get sick or scared or lose their minds from the heavy shift and virus spread, and so much more. We had to stay home more with our households and families. Local businesses plummeted as guidelines limited capacity or openness. This hurt communities so heavily, but it also created a strong sense of togetherness and bonding for many.
We may not all have faced the exact same experience during this virus’ impact on the world, but there are many elements that have been similar or almost the same across millions of people around the world especially within family units or communities. Whether you struggled, thrived, learned new things, enjoyed some self development, found closeness with household members, went a little crazy, or anything in between; you can agree that many aspects of life have become quite different over the time since the virus hit and spread throughout countries of the world.
Hopefully being able to see something like this can help you grasp what may stay the same through life after the pandemic and help you feel less alone in struggling through this time.