Covid-19: How it will change individuals
When it’s over, will things go back to how they were before? And what about us, will we? If the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) had only lasted weeks, and not required a fundamental change in how we live and work, then the answer to those questions would have been in the affirmative. But that is not the case. The Sars-CoV-2 virus still continues to ravage countries; it has reached 185 of the world’s 195 countries and infected 1.7 million people, killing over 100,000. In India, as of Saturday night, it has infected 8,380 and killed 288. It has wreaked havoc on businesses. Some may never recover. Others could take years to. And so, the answer will have to be in the negative. Things will not go back to how they were before. Nor will we. On two of the three previous Sundays since this column began, this writer looked at how the Covid-19 pandemic will change countries and companies. It is only to be expected that it will change people, too. By change, I don’t mean people losing jobs and having to look for new ones. That will happen, and it’s always tragic when it does. I know a lot of people who are worried about their jobs — they aren’t sure they will have them after the Covid-19 crisis has passed. “If this lasts, and we continue to work from home, I won’t be surprised if even the parting is virtual,” a senior executive in a large finance company said when he called last week to find out how I was coping. It is going to be a rare company that doesn’t cut costs after the crisis (many are doing this even during it). It will also be a rare company that doesn’t cut jobs. Many of these people will look for other, similar jobs, and at least some of the good ones will find them — if not immediately, then after a few months. Others will change careers, some even successfully. None of this can be termed real change. The crisis has made some people ask fundamental questions of themselves — of what’s really important to them; how much money they really need to live well; whether their lives need to be as complex and consumption-intensive as they are; if they should drop everything and follow their passion because, you know, Covid-19... A few years ago, I wrote about how many CEOs I knew who had turned 50 were asking themselves the same question: “What is the purpose of my life?” Now, far younger people, including those in their 30s are asking themselves these other questions. It isn’t surprising that they are doing so. Crises, such as the one caused by the still-raging pandemic, make people, especially the ones who do not worry about their lives and livelihoods (but some of them too), look at things differently. They render irrelevant externalities such as societal norms and peer pressure and tradition. They present questions (and problems) in their purest form, shorn of all else. Is this only for the privileged? Perhaps, but I remember that when the job-guarantee scheme was rolled out in the 2000s, it caused a significant asymmetry in labour markets simply because some workers in rural areas were willing to settle for less (much less) if it meant they could stay closer home. Will at least some migrant workers who spent the lockdown in camps look for work closer home when this is over? And so, when this is over, some people will change. Some will change geographies, others will change jobs, and still others will change careers. Some will change diets, others will change other habits, and still others may decide to play Thoreau in their own Waldens (minus the mothers providing food and doing the laundry, hopefully). Different people will answer the questions raised somewhere in the middle of this column, differently — for there are no correct answers.