Back To Normal Life or Creating A New Normal?

The first few months of 2020 have been a bizarre emotional rollercoaster. But let’s try to make an effort to stop talking about ‘returning to normal’, or building the idea of a 'new normal' based on social distancing and remote work alone. Let’s instead try to be conscious and deliberate about how we want to move forward. With a brand new, and better normal.

What should be considered ‘normal’, when it comes to our social life, work-life; the economy, social justice, and our general awareness and personal power as human beings?

My request to you, dear reader, and to myself is the following: 

Please, let’s make “The New Normal” mean that we’re going to consciously decide on a new, better and more enlightened definition of “Normal”.

It’s been a bizarre year, no doubt about it. And I have a hunch that we haven’t even seen the last of what strange, worldwide events 2020 has in store for us. However, as things stand:

We have a serious opportunity here, to change things for the better. But only if we consciously choose to use the current situation as such.

The New Normal

The “New Normal”, which is a term we’ve heard politicians, journalists and pundits echo across the globe the last few weeks, will possibly have to do with more physical distancing — but maybe also simply a more conscious decision as to physical proximity and contact, and a new realization of how preciously important it is to us; 

It will certainly have to do with more working from home, with several large tech companies making working remotely the new standard and a lot of other companies probably following suit — while for the rest of us there’s going to be a slow and steady return to the office — 

However, I personally expect many teams to find a perfect sweet spot in the middle between the archaic (pre-2020) mode of working at the office as a default on the one end, and working remotely always as the other extreme.

But let’s not stop at how and where we work.

Let’s create a positive, different, new norm — in economics and social equality

Please, in 2020 and beyond, let us make a firm, positive step ahead in the eradication of racism — echoing, building upon and following the abolition of slavery near the end of the 19th century and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. 

Let’s make the #BlackLivesMatter ideology live longer than the popularity of its hashtag.

There is even a possibility for creating a new economic/political reality: in a recent article for The Correspondent, Historian Rutger Bregman hints at the idea that the neoliberal era is ending, and wonders what comes next.

Speaking of ‘ideas lying around’ and the impact they might have in times of crisis, according to Bregman (and the Financial Times) we may soon see some serious influence from thinkers such as French economist Thomas Piketty — pushing toward far higher taxes for the richest in ‘social democracies’ as we have in much of The West.

We may even see serious impact from thinkers who are proponents of UBI schemes, such as in Spain, and innovations such as algorithm-taxes.

That might mean we need to create a new reality and a new ideology in terms of trust, freedom and equality. Let’s come together and work towards that, and let’s use the technology we have available now, to make it possible.

Let each of us enhance our awareness and make a conscious choice

I suppose what I am mainly asking for, is for all of us to become even more aware and to heighten our consciousness in general — as it seems to me the global trend already has been over the past couple of years, and not only on social media but also beyond.

Let each of us try to raise our (self-)awareness and make a conscious choice about the specific, unique added value we can all have to a — hopefully — positive evolution of ourselves and the world.

Now, what might that look like?

My own personal way to add to that higher consciousness and a ‘new normal’ is to finally start helping more people to become more conscious and balanced in the way we allow digital tech to influence our lives. As just a modest start.

Now, if you take a moment to think about it — what would yours be?

My new book “Life Beyond the Touch Screen” is out now, you can get it here as an e-book or paperback. It’s a meditational booklet designed to increase our consciousness around the impact of digital technology on our lives as individuals, in organizations and society. A reminder to choose.

The writing of this book changed my life. I hope that to a smaller or maybe larger extent, it might change something in your life too.