The most pronounced sentence in the past six months is ‘luckily, it’s possible again!’ It’s a nice sentence, because it shows how happy we are to sit on terraces again, visit concerts and festivals and fly everywhere. In short, after two corona years with the many limitations, fears and seriously ill or deceased people, we can enjoy ourselves, consume and travel again. We all have a great need for this and we see this reflected in the busy terraces, at the fully booked restaurants, the long queues at Schiphol and when hearing the new enthusiastic holiday stories from many around us.
The sentence has something sad for me too. The sentence expresses the desire to continue with what we had stopped, that which was denied us. There is no reflection in it, no thinking about changing. Maybe it’s too early for that and we first have to go wild again, enjoy what we couldn’t for a long time and what we really want. Perhaps we also want to live as much as possible now that we can, because after the summer the virus can strike again. Still, I want to ask the question: How has two years of corona made you think about how to live after corona?
Max Verstappen
The slowness and standstill during corona was very difficult for many to bear. In the meantime, we are now living faster and faster. More e-bikes than regular bicycles are sold, e-bikes that mainly go fast. For many, the internet is not fast enough and sidewalks and roads are being broken up everywhere to lay new cables for a new network. Food is increasingly becoming ‘fast food’, for lunch on a terrace in the afternoon and delivered to your home in the evening. The smartphone is constantly filled with new messages demanding attention. It never stops. Max Verstappen, worldwide sportsman of the year, is symbolic of the adoration of speed, for whom we have even opened a circuit in Zandvoort.
Two years of rest due to corona has made us neither psychologically nor physically healthier. Many young people became lonely and struggled with suicidal thoughts. At school, especially young people from the lower social classes fell behind. The first and second year students were thrown back on themselves and had no ‘student life’.
Diagnoses Exploded
In the decades prior to corona, the number of diagnoses of young people has exploded. Someone with ADHD has a constant need for new stimuli and can no longer concentrate on a task. Someone with ADD shuts out all stimuli, is apathetic in his own world, has no knowledge of or cannot meet the demands of education or work. Someone with autism tries to focus on or immerse himself in one subject, but is constantly inundated by stimuli around him.
Working from home was fun for a while, but we need ‘real life’ contacts at work to feel comfortable. That’s why everyone goes back to work and the traffic jams are back to normal. The rat race of working has started again. Burnout before your thirties is no longer exceptional. It is striking that more and more young adults do not like a five-day working week. Meditation, yoga and mindfulness have never been more popular for unwinding, for persevering.
Healthy living is eating right, exercising a lot and using your brain. They are under pressure in a world that comes to a standstill too slowly, but also in a world that is too fast and too stressful. But luckily it’s possible again, think about how you want to live after corona.
Lammert Waslander is a psychologist.