The coronavirus pandemic is the best representation of a completely unprecedented circumstance. This pandemic is very life-changing. No event in history has affected us as pervasively and profoundly. Not only this pandemic reminds us of your physical fragility, but it similarly weakens trade and industry safety, throws our everyday routines upside down, and isolates us from our neighbors and friends. This coronavirus pandemic continually changes who we are, how we relate to people and the world little by little.
This coronavirus pandemic affects us in 3 different ways:
- Changed needs
This crisis has made a broad vagueness. We have no idea how to make tails or heads, and we do not know how to think with these unfamiliar circumstances. The combination of danger and uncertainty is a recipe for severe anxiety. Being attached to our TV, we become a news junkie that hopes the next cycle will finally provide enlightenment.
In circumstances of drawn-out uncertainty, people are strained to simplistic solutions and black-and-white reasoning. Some settle to the limit of denial that nothing is wrong at all. Rumors are circulating everywhere and seized upon uncritically. This is the best time where reassuring leadership is very much desirable. We need to be told plain and simple what to do. This is not the time for complex deliberations.
2. Changed sense of security
People become group-centric when their need for closure rises. This means that they yearn for unity and cohesion. The coronavirus pandemic is frightening because each of us can be infected, and no one is exempted. No matter what your status and station in life are, popularity, and power, the virus still can get you. This possibility arouses an overriding sense of vulnerability. This means that one’s dependence on the other rises. It encourages boosting loved ones’ appreciation, putting social relations at a premium, and strengthening one’s attachments to others. One concern of our vulnerability in the pandemic’s face realizes that we need others and our greater sociability.
3. Changed values
Together with the growing attachment to others arises an understated change in our ethics. Our cultural ideals alter accordingly. As we are all facing right now, in times of crisis, offer some help to others, show empathy, and model humanity. It takes a back seat to admiration for simple acts of kindness.
The pandemic we have now alters who we are and affects diverse facets of our psyche. We may agree with some of the changes toward humanitarian values and communal bonds and disapprove of others. The immense crisis we are facing, whether we like it or not, are bringing out not just the worst in us but also the best in us. The coronavirus pandemic is just another way of teaching us how to value our life, family, friends, the work we have, and the things you have now. It may somehow change us, but it will lead us to be stronger and appreciate the things that may come, good or bad.
