In this week’s A New Normal, we’re exploring how this shared experience is bringing a new sense of urgency to how we plan our lives and move through our personal and collective milestones.
We Zoomed into five households to understand how people are homing in on what’s essential and recalibrating their life plans in the midst of COVID-19. From purchasing real estate on a (much) faster timetable, to moving cross country to be with loved ones, our circumstances are encouraging many of us to mature faster than we might have expected. Although many life plans have been put on hold, the people we spoke with aren’t experiencing the pandemic as life suspended, instead they’re using the moment to make profound life progress. 🔜
Grounded from traveling, James embraces his lifestage
A former Olympic skier, James is used to chasing elite flyer status on United and spending his free time skiing in Aspen, but now, everything’s shifted. “I’m 73 years old so I’m in the zone [to be higher risk for COVID-19]; anybody over 65 is in the zone so that’s scary. I’m perfectly fine in my house but I could go out and some guy could sneeze on me and I could easily get it,” James says.
For him, this moment is about embracing his lifestage and addressing the questions he hasn’t had the time or attention to take on. Ignoring the inevitable isn’t helpful, taking it head on is what feels right. “I figured I might as well get the latest and greatest in safety so I’m getting a new car,” he shares, “I’m also redoing my will and trust because I realized that if I dropped dead tomorrow, I better have these done. I hate having to think about stuff like ‘Who do you want to pull the plug?’ ‘Who do you want to take care of your financial affairs?’ but then reality sets in.”
Sterling is ready to move out of a lifestage (and out of cities)
For much of his adult life, Sterling was immersed in cities, following his passions of DJ-ing, record collecting, and going out with friends. When the stay-at-home mandates hit and the economic outlook became more uncertain, Sterling found himself questioning the fundamentals of his next chapter: “The lifestyle that I knew and loved in LA was around the nightlife, music, and of course the food,” he tells us, “But those things don’t really seem as important now.”
Sterling views the circumstances as a chance to mature and reassess his priorities,“What does seem more important is making sure that I make the right move, financially, and put myself in the best position to ride out the economic storm that we’re going to go through for at least a year or two more.”
So he’s moving to the suburbs of Greenville, SC, home to his family and the construction business they own. “Going through this period is scary and during scary times you get down to the basics and realize what is important,” Sterling shares. “Being able to spend time with my mother here in Greenville after 20 years of being distant and seeing her maybe once a year, I realize now what really matters.”
COVID has given Natalie a window to realize her dream of homeownership
“COVID made me feel like it’s time to take action. With everything going on — time is no longer in my favor. So if there is a moment to do something big, it’s now,” says Natalie, who works in marketing. After fleeing from Los Angeles to be in Great Falls, VA with family, the opportunity to invest in real estate presented itself.
It was a chance to leap, “The price of the land was really cheap. We had the money so we just dropped it without even thinking about it.” Natalie explains, “It’s less than an acre in the Southside of Richmond in an underdeveloped area that’s just starting to pick up, which is what makes it a good opportunity. I see it as an investment because the city zones it as a multifamily plot, which allows us to build more than one house on it.”
Natalie thought she would call Los Angeles home for a while, but after buying land and staying with family she has a whole new mindset:
“Family is all I’ve got. Nobody at my company is going to care about me like my family does, and I don’t think I should worry about making my boss happier than my boyfriend.”
With wedding plans on hold, Miri has found a creative way to take that next step
When COVID-19 put a halt to her plans to get married this coming November, Miri realized postponing her wedding would also mean postponing her partnership, including the ‘practical’ benefits. Without marriage, her fiancé would have no legal rights to be her medical proxy. “It’s a weird thing considering our lives are so intertwined in every other way,” says Miri.
Miri found an unorthodox way to move the partnership forward. She signed up for MyDirectives — a digital platform that allows one to compile their medical treatment wishes in advance should there be a scenario in which they’re unable to physically or mentally make those decisions on the spot. “It felt so uncomfortable to have a conversation and say ‘when I’m dead…’ It was much easier to fill out a form and make those decisions on my own,” she said. “I went through them going ‘okay I don’t want them to do this much work on me at this point’, or ‘it’s very important for me to have a Jewish burial’ and then told my fiancé, ‘listen, here’s what you need to know.’”
Miri says filling out her directives gave her a much-needed sense of control. “You can’t control when your time is up, how it’s going to happen, and you can’t really control disease or viruses or accidents, but to be able to control one small bit of the end of your life is an empowering feeling,” she shares.
Privileging quality of life above all else, 80 year-old Rose bravely decides to spend her final days on her own terms
For the last six years, Rose lived in a retirement community and drove to dialysis three times a week. Despite it being an intensive process, it all seemed worth it for Rose because it meant she could see her family regularly.
But when her retirement community went on lockdown and no outside visitors were permitted, “she realized that her quality of life might never really go back to what it was or what she was hoping for,” her grandson Teddy tells us.
Rose decided to stop dialysis to spend time with her family. For her it meant taking back control. Liberated to let go, she lived the last chapter how she wanted. “She spent her final days at my Aunt’s house. Even in the last few days it was just easy to be around her. We would sit with her, hanging out as a family, and one-by-one we would go-over and hold her hand,” says Teddy, “We were all sad about her decision, it was obviously hard to make, but I respected her because I thought there was so much bravery in making that choice.”
Coming out of his challenging moment, we may be more conscious of the choices—even the big ones—that we can make. If we assign greater value to autonomy and self-direction. we might be able to improve our individual and collective lives.
A New Normal is a series by Redscout, a strategy and design consultancy. The series examines how COVID-19 is changing the world and envisions how these shifts are reshaping our work and that of our collaborators, our clients, our friends. Sign up to the newsletter here.
