Many told me they want to spend less money shopping for new material goods like gadgets and clothes. This was by far the most popular response. Some broad trends leaped out in the responses. More than 100 people responded across the globe, from the United States to the United Arab Emirates and from Portugal to Pakistan. I asked Vox readers to tell me which specific changes they want to maintain as they emerge from quarantine and stumble their way to a new normal. And they want to keep some of these things going, even in a post-lockdown world. Quarantine has allowed them to experiment with new habits and new lifestyles. Many are finding that the things that made them look “successful” actually also made them feel miserable, or precarious, or physically unwell. Workers whose jobs defined their lives are now asking what all that productivity was for, and whether we really want to measure our self-worth by the yardstick of hypercompetitive capitalism. Older and immunocompromised people are still advised to stay home.Īt the same time, living in quarantine for months has offered some - mostly the privileged among us - a rare opportunity to reflect on our lives and, potentially, to reset them.
Millions who’ve lost their jobs don’t have any work to go back to, and many essential workers have been working through the pandemic without much choice.
Those who are grieving the loss of loved ones, for example, have suffered a tragic and irrevocable loss. We’re questioning the very fundamentals of the “normal” we’d all come to unthinkingly accept - and realizing we don’t want to go back, not to that.įor some, going back isn’t even an option. Although being on lockdown has been pretty grueling on balance, the surprise is that many of us have realized there are some things about quarantine life that are worth preserving. And some people are starting to feel they can glimpse a return, however slow and partial, to “normal.”īut the pandemic has changed us.