There is something unusual about the atmosphere. I cannot best describe this in words, but here I am, still functioning at almost 83.33% of what I’m used to doing anyway — albeit the need to co-habit with some minor but yet, “forced” inconveniences and inconsistencies.

The initial phase of entering the “Circuit Breaker” (for my international friends out there — Singapore is currently under in a “partial lockdown” stage where residents are strongly encouraged not to venture out unless there’s a pressing need to do so) was a little jarring for me. Everything just came hitting on me like a tsunami. Within the shortest possible span of an overnight notice, I knew I’m out of the office, working from home. There was no time to do any form of proper handovers, run through WFH rules of engagement or even to say a simple “see you” to my fellow co-workers.

Barring the frustrations arising from the unstable network connections back to the office’s servers, I’m actually pretty much settled in the general scheme of things. But, it took me considerable effort and consciousness to come to terms with the new norm.

While we are all casually acknowledging that “life will never be the same again” and there will be a new norm, a new world order which humankind would need to abide by post this coronavirus-era; I can’t help but suspect that we may not be visualising or expecting the same ‘norm’. Granted that the experts have painted broad strokes on what might be different, or at least, looks different at the global level of things — yet, if we deconstruct the differences, the narratives around these differences will be very different to individuals.

Let me try to illustrate the point I have made. Prior to the coronavirus mayhem, it’s not uncommon to talk about virtual web conferencing, virtual learning etc. In the boardroom, the discussion on grandiose digital transformation plans have been ongoing for ages as if there is some mysterious formula out there to get things right. From an employee’s perspective (discounting those who are working at Google, Facebook and the likes), the psychological effort to switch to virtual engagement seems a mammoth task. Huge curveballs such as lack of confidence in handling technical software, equipment just stunted psychological growth and belief about moving towards digitalisation.

With the onslaught of the coronavirus, our learning curve may be steep, but, it was compressed overnight. I like how someone described this: It’s like flying a plane and changing it’s failing component concurrently. There’s absolutely no chance of stopping and you need to get going and in order to get going, you need to fix that faulty component! So, what do you do? You just have to keep pressing on and muster whatever hat tricks you have or learn as doubly fast as you can to fix that problem.

And here comes the crux — while the condition, pressure and the new goal of getting ourselves to embrace functioning in a virtual world may be largely similar, but, there are subtleties in how different individuals with vastly different demographic profiles perceive it and on the actions that they can even take. Which means, my neighbour’s perception on what’s “normal” on WFH may be quite different from my idea about WFH. The only common goal that we know that we need to work towards is — we need to keep flying that plane, make sure we don’t go down with it and find your own sweet spot or ways to fix that faulty component.

We can see that the veneer still looks pretty much intact; we seem to have some sort of answers and are able to provide some sort of guidance on what we need to do to embrace the new norm. Yet, it may be quite disconcerting at the individual level. What if WFH is really not a conducive option? Already we are seeing articles and commentaries that have surfaced, shedding light on such inconveniences.

Across the globe, there has been this sense of “resignation to our fate” at an unprecedented scale. While some of us have accepted what is in front of us and what is to come with “good cheer”, there are still others who are struggling to grapple with the reality and trying to decipher how an invisible virus had brought the world to its knees, causing emotional and psychological turmoil and buckling economies.

I have summarily joked about the experience akin to being under a ‘house arrest’. It’s different from imprisonment. You know that there is some degree of freedom for you to maneuver but not too much. And how much is “too much”? The problem is, we don’t exactly know the threshold and for how long this state of affairs will be the order of the day and what’s next for us. The unknowns are unnerving but we are all making the best of the situation by doing a lot of “mindset reframing”.

Let me end with this. In Philippians 1:22, even Paul has to admit, “… I do not know…” (which is the best way or the right way forward). Similarly, I think we don’t necessarily have to keep asking “why” and “how”. I don’t mean to sound cliche, but sometimes, the road ahead of us will reveal the path to us if we intentionally make a way for ourselves.

Philippians 1:22, KJV: “But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.”