We should be proud to have found light in dark Covid days

ISN’T it funny how we humans adapt? This reactive superpower is evident in all walks of life and situations, from simply changing a part of your daily routine to doing whatever is necessary for survival.

Anyone interested in a bit of stoicism will be familiar with one book that brilliantly documents how humans can evolve and even find happiness in the most challenging circumstances.

In Man’s Search For Meaning, written just after the Second World War, author Viktor Frankl, describes the lessons he learned as a Holocaust survivor, and how his experiences shaped his understanding of life and meaning.

Imprisoned in the living hell that was Auschwitz, separated from his wife for three years, Frankl identified how humans could evolve no matter what through will, love and suffering.

Although without the first two, the struggle to survive is infinitely more difficult.

It’s all to do with perspective, and this came into my mind this week when I was reminded that this month marks the fourth anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic.

To be clear, I’m not drawing comparisons between the Holocaust and what the world began to experience in 2020. But there’s no doubt that the world as we knew it crashed before our eyes in March 2020, and we had no choice but to endure something that felt nothing short of apocalyptic.

In Ireland, there was fear and shock and trauma, from nightly bulletins on hospitalisations and deaths to strict lockdown measures which meant, effectively, all of the shutters came down.

With closed schools, childcare facilities, cultural institutions, hospitality and retail, our lives became almost unrecognisable.

There were no celebrations, no St Patrick’s Day festivities; even Christmas was cancelled. There were no holidays, no family gatherings, no children playing together. We have a generation of college students who have no idea what freshers’ week is.

And the impact of enforced home-schooling on parents and children cannot be overstated; for many this uncharted territory was hugely disruptive, from both a developmental and a mental health perspective.

Families couldn’t visit their loved ones in hospital and, most heartbreakingly, many never got to say their final goodbyes.

Mothers birthed alone, and babies came into a world of masked faces. There were carefully distanced queues for everything, and nothing could be touched without fear. There were days and weeks and months that we thought would never end.

From my point of view – and I think I speak for many – this uncertainty was the worst of all.

EVEN writing this, I am triggered by memories of those dark days, imprisoned as we were in an unnatural and heightened state of fear and frustration. But the initial horror did pass, and we emerged tentatively – albeit shaken and scarred – into a new, changed world.

Everything reopened, people started hugging again, children ran freely to play. We pulled off masks and shrugged off wet pubs and elbow bumps and embraced all of the elements of life that we had been deprived of for so long.

By the time the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared an end to the global pandemic in May 2023, I almost felt like March 2020 and the months that followed were a lifetime ago.

We got through it all – the worst and the best of it – and that’s something to really cherish: the magic in moments, even at the height of lockdown, and the progress and good that came from it all.

The pandemic proved the quickening pace of medical progress and, as WHO director general Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated, the development of ‘multiple safe and effective vaccines in such rapid time was an unprecedented triumph of science’.

Covid obviously changed how we worked – and as a result, many people’s work-life balance postpandemic is better. With no choice but to embrace remote working, there’s a healthier flexibility overall, as many companies stick with an office/ home hybrid working week.

As a parent, this is invaluable – the one thing I truly cherished during the pandemic was being home to put my children to bed, and now I can collect them from school too, which I never thought possible. With everything stripped back, we had no choice but to slow down, live more mindfully, and get out in nature (which, incidentally, was positively affected by the pandemic, as lockdowns cleaned the skies). Covid rekindled an appreciation for the great outdoors that the world had taken for granted.

And yes – our mental health and relationships suffered – but because of this, we’ve zoned in on our wellbeing and lifestyles. The pandemic highlighted the global health problem of loneliness, for example. We now know that being socially disconnected is harmful – its impact on mortality is equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day – and there’s a deeper appreciation of the need for human connection.

There’s more too – from increased creativity (those lockdown hobbies), career segues and life resets, we have learned valuable lessons in the past four years. Suffice it to say, we found meaning. And of that, we should be very proud.