o COVID-19 | Life Lessons | Society
Embracing Inconvenience As a Path Towards Our New Normal
COVID-19 has disrupted our lives. Simple but inconvenient gestures can allow us to get back to our new normal.
We crave convenience in every aspect of our lives. Is it laziness? I don’t think so. We adopt the natural tendency to follow the path of least resistance. Asking Siri to set up a timer for two minutes is a much favorable path than having to unlock our phone, go to the timer app, select timer, set it up for two minutes, and press start. Convenience makes our lives more efficient.
Embracing inconvenience during COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our accommodating lives. More planning, fewer liberties. More anxiety, fewer drinks with friends. The city-wide shelter-in-place in some areas forced us to evaluate new ways to maximize our leisure time. From coming to terms with transplanting our physical worlds into a Zoom video chat to disturbing neighbors with at-home exercise routines, there was a time where everything seemed like an obstacle. Now, however, those obstacles don’t appear as energy-demanding as they did three months ago. We embraced the inconveniences as a mechanism of adaptation to move forward in our new reality.
As states move to “re-open” the economy, every quarantined soul yearns going back to normal. However, is “normal” our pre-COVID19 era? I wish. Our new normal requires us to learn how to carry on with our lives in the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. To accomplish this task, we must embrace inconvenience.
Why? Because the proven methods that will enable us to coexist with the coronavirus are inconvenient. Putting on a mask is inconvenient. Doing additional planning is inconvenient. Avoiding group gatherings is inconvenient. To not touch your face while outside is inconvenient. Having dry hands after washing them every two hours is inconvenient.
What happens if we don’t want to embrace inconvenience?
Under current COVID19 circumstances, not embracing inconvenience means playing an intense game of risk tolerance.
Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario. If you are a high-risk tolerant person, you wouldn’t probably put on a seatbelt while driving if it wasn’t considered a violation. As a driver, even as an unconscious decision, you would risk it. Putting on a seatbelt can reduce this risk, but it’s an inconvenience. Although compared to the experience of a fatal accident, it’s a reasonably small inconvenience, I would say.
To not wear a mask while outside is like not putting on the seatbelt while driving. In this risk tolerance exercise, we must balance the risks of perpetuating COVID19 conditions and potentially harming others with the inconvenience of dealing with a face mask.
In summary
To have our best shot at coexisting with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, we must accept some difficulties in our daily lives. A simple but inconvenient gesture, such as wearing a mask, can allow us to enter a new normal safely.
