What we do next will define us
2020. As we all know, it’s been… challenging. And it’s likely to get more interesting as we progress through the back-half of this year; the full economic fallout from COVID-19 will start to be felt and the very real fear about what happens next consumes us like another wave of the virus.
And that’s where this post begins. With the question, what will we (as humans and broader society) do next?
If we rewind back a bit, humanity hasn’t exactly shown its best qualities over the past few months. Two words: toilet paper. And while we’re not all the ‘hoarding, bunker digging, I’ll punch you in the face if you steal my last roll’ type of people, it’s clear that when threatened, we’re still more likely to go tribal to protect what’s most important to us (whether that be our immediate loved ones or to feel the pleasure of a soft double ply).
Despite the ensuing chaos that took hold of the world in March, there has been much talk of a positive reset in the world. That things will slow down. That we will learn from all the over-indulgence and apply a new simplified approach to the way we work and live.
However, and as things open up in different economies, I can’t help but wonder, are we actually prepared or willing to change? Or in fact…
Do we have the capacity to change?
Let’s rewind again. In the early 1900s, people seemingly had more long-term views about what they wanted to create, how they wanted to live. It was also a simpler time; there was less technology, information moved more slowly.
So while there was economic upheaval, war, a pandemic and more that the human species had to endure, people were inherently more in touch with the basics. Companies were built on solid fundamentals (i.e. making actual money), a far cry from a world where companies raise millions of dollars never to turn a profit but instead to make the venture capital firms a very healthy return before it’s put out to pasture for the plebs (i.e. the Mum and Dad investors who get in rarely make any money at all).
If we come back to today, short-termism and instant gratification are now more ingrained in our society. Information flows at warp speed. Events that used to take years to unfold and resolve now happen in months and weeks. We feed off the next dopamine hit as we scroll our devices seeking out an escape from the present state.
Our short-term focus can be seen in many parts of society, but one good example is in how we perceive our Government. I’ve always marvelled at the fact that people have such strong views when it comes to how they vote and what they think of our leaders. Yet they also seemingly have very short memories. Which is again likely why politicians are so good at focusing on the here and now rather than what matters long term for the good of a country and its people.
Here’s a good example. In Australia, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison has had an interesting 2020. The start of this year was like something out of a biblical story, with fires ravaging most of the country, then floods and finally a great plague (i.e. COVID-19).
When fires were burning day and night, Mr Morrison decided it was a good time to take a holiday to Hawaii. When he bowed to public pressure and came back, his poor handling of the situation (which also dates back to measures he should have taken a year before to minimise the fire’s impact) saw fire-affected communities swearing at him and refusing to shake his hand.
At that time, his approval rating was 37%. But fast forward a few months, we’re in a pandemic. People are scared. They’re fearful for their health and whether or not they will run out of toilet paper and pasta. In late June, Morrison’s personal approval was 68% with his dissatisfaction falling to 27%.
So in times of fear it’s convenient to stop thinking about what really matters. Because your own livelihood is threatened. Your hard-wiring takes over and you’re focused on you and those closest to you.
Perhaps this article in the Washington Post sums it up so well:
“…the past six months in Australia’s obtuse political climate point to a persistent problem: It is more convenient to forget failure during times of fear than to learn lessons. And that does not bode well for the future.”
So when dealing with fear we are more likely to be selfish but that selfishness is also something that seems to be more ingrained in today’s society than perhaps it once was.
And there are many examples of what that selfishness looks like. It looks like the security guard who decided that it would be a good idea to sleep with quarantined international travellers and start a second wave of COVID-19 in Melbourne. It looks like the Melbournians who came up to Sydney despite being told to stay at home and then started another cluster of cases, or the beach-goers who ignored advice during the height of cases in Sydney to hit the sand instead.
It looks like the President of the United States who has prioritised himself and his business interests, and in the face of a pandemic is more interested in having mass rallies than protecting the people he’s there to serve.
And at a more basic level, it looks like the rifts being created in friendships because some people feel entitled to ignore guidelines provided and judge their friends who are trying to do the right thing.
So what happens next?
For the first time for most of us, we’re in a situation where we truly need to come together as one to help each other for the future.
Because if we can’t come together to help ourselves directly — something we’re normally so good at focusing on — then how do we stand a chance to tackle something like climate change?
We’ll need to re-engineer the way we approach bloated lifestyles, where we binge on debt and immediate pleasure and reward. Where we seek to define ourselves by how many restaurants we can go to and how well we framed the last Instagram post we shared.
But to even get to a place where we can re-imagine a life that we used to know, we need to do something truly extraordinary to right this ship which is now half underwater.
We need to stop thinking individually and start thinking and acting as a collective. Because right now, we’re dealing with a human-made fallout as a result of a human-threatening virus.
And instead of forming new habits only to throw them away at the first sign of things ‘getting back to normal’ we need to think longer-term beyond the insatiable thirst for that next dopamine hit.
So what we do next will define us. However, if we don’t have the capacity for change, maybe we already know how bleak the outlook is.
